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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 


PRINCETON. N. J. 


PRESENTED BY 


mics. William Swan. 


BT 1101 .W4 1880 

Whately, E. J. 1822-1893. 

How to answer objections to| 
revealed religion | 


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HOW TO ANSWER OBJECTIONS 


TO 


REVEALED RELIGION. 


: 


BY MISS E. J. WHATELY, 


WITH A PREFATORY NOTE 


BY REV. JOHN HALL, D. D. 


PME RICAN TRACT: SOCIETY, 


I50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 


> 


a 
oJ 
2 


PREPATORY NOEE 


TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 


——- o - 


THERE is some advantage in living near a person 
of great powers wisely directed. One cannot but 
know in a measure “what manner of man” he is; 
even though contact be but occasional, it gives an 
idea more vivid and definite than is conveyed by 
any description. 

It was one of the felicities of my life in Dublin 
that it gave me the means of appreciating Arch- 
bishop Whately—a man in many respects of com- 
manding ability, as well as of great moral and Chris- 
tian worth. Without the fervor of feeling and the 
graces of manner which have often secured a tran- 
sient popularity, he was accustomed to rely upon 
calm and unimpassioned appeals to judgment and 
conscience. One result is that his influence sur- 
vives him, and it never can be with his public utter- 


4 PREFATORY NOTE. 


ances as with many of which we say, they need the 
magnetism and personal charm of the man himself 
to gain for them a hearing. 

It was natural for the author of a standard work 
on Logic, being also a clergyman, to give much 
attention to the Evidences of Christianity. Both 
formally and indirectly the archbishop made large 
contributions to this department of sacred liter- 
ature. 

That his daughter should have inherited his 
literary tastes and profited by his teaching is only 
what might have been expected. The little book 
which we are gratified to find the AMeRIcAN TRACT 
SOCIETY preparing to issue here, while the work of. 
a lady, we may be assured contains nothing which 
her distinguished father would have disapproved, 
and yet may, as the work of a lady, come nearer to 
the mental plane of a large class that need instruc- 
tion than any book of the archbishop’s. 

The objections stated and answered are com- 
mon, in some instances plausible, and by many no 
doubt sincerely urged. The answers are calm, dis- 
passionate, free from any irritating matter, and— 
which is no mean recommendation—concise and 


PREFATORY NOTE. 5 


intelligible. A useful and not too full “ Appendix” 
of authorities is added in regard to points concern- 
ing which the reader may be supposed to look for 
the support of influential names. 

Miss Whately’s book is so constructed that one 
may heartily commend it without feeling it neces- 
sary to indicate where he might, if writing on the 
subject, have taken a different line. She does not 
give most of her answers as necessarily ¢e rejoin. 
der, still less as the oz/y answer. She proceeds on 
the just principle that in the nature of the case it is 
sufficient to show in reply to many objections and 
difficulties zhat a reply or solution is possible. 
Whether hers is the ultimate and final rejoinder or 
not, is not vital to the discussion. 

Yet even in this regard the instances are few 
indeed in which (as in the case of the “ Confusion 
of Tongues,” page 47), one would hesitate to adopt 
Miss Whately’s arguments ; and they do not mod-_ 
ify in the least the hearty commendation, and as far 
as it may be of any value, recommendation, of this 
admirable little volume which I am permitted to 
offer. The devout and earnest Christian worker 
who gave it to the English readers, and who has 


6 , PREFATORY NOTE. 


shown in her own life-work how Christian fervor 
can accompany a clear and logical mind, how “ dry 
light” and loving labor can coexist, will rejoice, if 
it shall accomplish in the other great division of 
the English-speaking family some of the good it 
was intended to do in Great Britain and Ireland. — 


: JOHN HALL, D. D. 
New York, January, 1880. 


: ONTE - { NTS) 


MNTRODUCTION ~*~ 3 -2--7--- 0-2 ron ctor nnn sec enee= PAGE 9 


OBJECTIONS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
SECLIONNTS. 


Discrepancies in Narrative, Chronology, etc. --------------- 31 


SECTION. IT, 
Difficulties connected with Questions of Science, Natural His- 
tory, and what may be called the Physical Wonders re- 
lated in Scripture ------------------------------7--->- 36 


SCION AT, 
Apparent Moral Difficulties in the Old Testament History --- 53 


OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


SECTION I. 
The New Testament Miracles ----------------+---+-----7-- St 


ated LOWELL. 


On the Genuineness of the Gospels- ----~--+--------**++---- gt 


8 CONTENTS. 


OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY GENERALLY. 


| oC? LOWVeT. 
Christian Doctrine and Practice ------- wort t ret cece eee ee 102 


SECTION I, 
Objections connected with the Doctrine of the Atonement --- 120 


BEPEND Xo cn a0 annus tons senna wes tat cuswa>scceeue eee 137 


HOW TO ANSWER OBJECTIONS 


TO 


REVEALED RELIGION: 


INTRODUCTION. 


In a well-disciplined army, the officers are not 
only trained to handle arms and resist an attack 
from the enemy, but are instructed in the most 
efficient and successful modes of laying siege to 
fortresses, defending important stations from assail- 
ants, and, in short, are prepared in every way to 
meet any plans that may be laid against them. 

In this, as in many other cases, it is sadly true 
that “the children of this world are wiser in their 
- generation than the children of light.” The Chris- 
tian soldier, contending for the truth, is too often 
content with making a vague trust in God's help a 
cloak for indolence and slackness in making use of 
the powers which were given him to be used against 
the enemies of the truth. We have to deal with an 


Revealsd Religion. 2 


10 INTRODUCTION. 


unsleeping, ever-ready antagonist, one who knows 
every inch of the battle-ground, and has an eagle 
eye to spy out our weak points. Do we meet him 
prepared as we should be for the battle? 

True, we have a never-failing tower of strength 
at hand. The Captain of our salvation is never far 
from us. But he has never encouraged us to be- 
lieve that he will work a miracle to do for us what 
we can do ourselves. And as he has endowed us 
with reason and understanding and memory, we are 
bound to use these good gifts not only in what con- 
cerns this life, but in matters of higher import. We 
are called on to be “faithful,” not only in adminis- 
tering the “unrighteous mammon,” but not the less, 
surely, in what concerns the “true riches.” And 
our plain duty is to be prepared to meet the devices 
and snares which the enemy of our souls is ever on 
the watch to plan against us. 

At the present day he appears to be peculiarly 
active in trying to shake men’s faith in revealed — 
religion. There has been no lack of attempts of 
this kind ever since Christianity was first preached ; 
but in our age this anti-Christian spirit seems to 
be pervading all classes of society and almost every — 
department of literature. Many scientific men are 
sparing no pains in trying to turn the knowledge 


INTRODUCTION. II 


they have acquired into weapons against the reve- 
lation of Him who is the Author of Nature. Many 
of our literary men are tainted with the same spirit; 
some openly avow it, and more still are covertly and 
cautiously carrying on the same unholy warfare. In 
every walk of life we are liable to meet with those 
who will bring forward objections—which some- 
times appear very plausible to inexperienced per- 
sons—against the truth of Christianity. 

These critics do not always call themselves 
unbelievers ; some of them profess a great respect 
for Christianity and admiration for much of its 
teaching ; but the Zistorical parts of the Bible, they 
say, cannot be received as worthy of trust. The 
moral precepts of the gospel they acknowledge to 
be noble and wise ; -some of them, however, confine 
their approbation to the first three Gospels, object- 
ing to what they-term the abstruse doctrine of the 
fourth; but most are agreed in admiration of the 
chief part of the former. 

They allege that it would be wiser for Christian 
writers and ‘teachers not to weaken their own cause 
by taking their stand on the truthfulness of histo- 
ries which present so many difficulties, and against 
which so many objections can be urged; but to be 
content with basing their faith, and seeking to en- 


12 INTRODUCTION. 


able others to do the same, not on the facts recorded 
in the Bible, but on the pure and. sublime morality 
of the Sermon on the Mount and other gospel dis- 
courses, leaving abstruse doctrines on the one hand, 
and histories on the other, completely out of the 
question. Some may express these views more 
fully and plainly than others; but this is the gen- 
eral drift of what writers of this class inculcate on 
the subject. 

Many, who do not themselves doubt the truth of 
the Scripture history, are taken in by the apparent 
fairness and moderation of these arguments, and are 
led by timidity, or indolence, or a mistaken though 
well-intentioned desire for peace, to yield the point 
disputed, and to allow that, after all, Christianity 
rests mainly on its holy and pure moral lessons; and 
that even though we ourselves may be persuaded of 
the authenticity of its history, still we may venture, 
for the sake of peace and a more extended influence 
of Christian teaching, to leave the question of his- 
torical accuracy, as it were, on one side. 

But such persons do not perceive that this con- 
clusion is founded on a total misapprehension of 
what Christianity really is. .They are judging it as 
if it were a mere system of philosophy, like the 
teaching of Socrates or Plato or Confucius. 


INTRODUCTION. 13 


Now the great difference between the Christian 
religion and every system of this kind is, that it is 
not a religion of doctrines only, but of doctrines 
founded on facts. The holiness inculcated is a 
holiness springing from love to God, based on a 
living faith in Christ; and that faith in Christ is 
a belief in him not simply as a Zeacher, but as the 
Godman, taking our nature on himself, that he 
might die for our sins and rise again for our justi- 
fication. Rom. 4: 25. 

The foundation-stone of Christianity is the fact 
of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; and that death and resurrection form the 
central point on which the Scripture narrative 
hinges. 

The history of man’s fall and redemption is like 
a perfect building, every part so fitly joined together 
that one stone cannot be removed or its place al- 
tered without the whole falling. And to talk of 
separating the gospel teaching from the facts on 
which it is based is as idle as to try to separate the 
coloring of a picture from its outline. Christianity 
must stand or fall according as the history on which 
it is built is received or rejected ; to overthrow the 
one is to overthrow the other. ' 

For the last eighteen centuries unbelievers have 


14 INTRODUCTION. 


been trying in every way, openly or covertly, to — 
overthrow the arguments for the truth of revealed 
religion. No history we possess, ancient or mod- 
ern, has been so severely tested. No history which 
had rested on a foundation one whit less secure ~ 
could have stood a tenth part of the attacks which, 
since the early days of its first beginning, have been 
directed against it. No efforts have been spared to — 
shake men’s faith in it. And it has generally been 
found that the very endeavors made to storm the 
fort have only tended to prove more fully that it is 
impregnable. 

But in our days these discussions are not, as 
they once were, mainly confined to the learned few. 
Young persons in every position in life are exposed 
to the danger of meeting with those who will bring 
forward objections to the foundation truths of our 
faith ; and this, not after the manner of open scof- 
fers, but in a tone so apparently moderate and 
plausible that it may easily take in an inexperienced 
hearer. It is of no use to shut our eyes and ears to 
this state of things, and to fancy we shall be safe 
by ignoring it. The only security is to be well pre- 
pared beforehand. True, no study and no reasoning 
power will supply the place of a heart truly taught 
by the Spirit of God, and of a humble, candid mind, 


INTRODUCTION. 16 


such as only the influence of that blessed Spirit can 
give. But our part is to be armed on all sides ; and 
it is surely incumbent on all to seek, in the words 
of the apostle, to be “ready always to give an an- 
swer to every man that asketh you a reason of the 
hope that is in you.” 1 Pet. 3:15. 

It may be a help to some young students of the 
Bible to point out a few of the objections usually 
put forward, and the difficulties started, by those 
who attack the Christian religion, and some of the 
ways in which they can be most effectually an- 
swered. 

But before entering upon this part of the sub- 
ject, a few general remarks may not be out of place. 
And, first, we have to keep in mind that we are not 
called on, either in the case of Christianity or of 
any other great truth, to answer all the objections 
which could possibly be brought forward. 

No discovery has ever been made, no history 
has ever been related, to which objections, and even 
' valid ones, might not be made. 

But the wise course, with respect to all these, 
is neither to ignore nor deny them, but simply to 
point out that they are outweighed by the greater 
objections on the other side. 

And this is our business in respect of the argu- 


16 e INIRODUGILON. 


ments brought forward against Christianity: not 
to declare hastily that 0 objections can possibly be 
urged, but to prove, as we easily may, that the diffi- 
culties on the opposite side are immeasurably greater 
than any possible ones that can be alleged against 
our religion. Difficulties we cannot escape: if we 
disbelieve that Christianity came from God, we 
must believe that it came from men; and on this 
side of the question we must accept things far 
harder to believe than any which are offered to us 
on the other. 

To prove Christianity to be true is one thing ; 
to answer every cavil which can be brought against 
it is another, and the attempt would hardly be ust 
itable. 

Still, in an age in which objections are continu- 
ally brought forward in one shape or another, and 
in which we cannot escape hearing and reading 
about them, it is well to be prepared to answer those 
commonly urged. Not that it would be wise for 
any young student to engage, in general, in the 
perusal of books containing objections of this kind; 
that would be going voluntarily into temptation, 
which we have no right to do, and in which we can- 
not expect help from above. And we know not 
what advantages we may give our spiritual enemy 


INTRODUCTION. 17 


over us, in some moment of weakness, if we rashly 
enter the battle when the Lord has not called us. 
But when the adversary meets us, then we are 
plainly called on by our Captain to be ready, as 
soldiers of Christ, with “the shield of faith and the 
-sword of the Spirit,’ to repel his attacks; and to 
‘be rightly able to do this we must be on our guard, 
and “look that our arms be bright,” and ourselves 
‘prepared when the call comes to defend the Lora’s 
cause, in his strength. 

And we need to use our reason and common 
sense for this ; for even in upholding truth inexpe- 
rienced Christians may sometimes put themselves 
inadvertently, so to say, in the enemy’s hands, by 
leaving some weak point in their armor undefended, 
or laying themselves open to attack in return, where 
it might be avoided by a little care. It is to help 
those who feel this difficulty in finding suitable an- 
swers for themselves that the few suggestions which 
follow are given. It is hoped that they may put the 
student in the way to follow up the same plan for 
himself, and indicate the line he should take in re- 
pelling his adversary’s efforts. 

We shall find that the part of the Bible most 
generally chosen as the point of attack is the Old 
_ Testament. Many who admit, wholly or partially, 


Revealed Religion. 3 


18 | INTRODUCTION. ; 


the truth of the New Testament, endeavor to sep- 
arate it from the Old; and many, even of those 


who do not themselves profess openly to reject this 


last, are exceedingly averse to any systematic at- 
tempt being made to defend its authenticity, or at 
all events to making it in any sense the battle- 


ground. “It is mere narrowness and cowardice,’ — 


they assert, “to speak as if the question of the 
truth of the Christian religion could be in any way 
affected by these doubts.” | 

“ The faith of Christians,” they will say, “rests, 
not on these ancient histories, but on the sublime 
teaching of the New Testament. What have ques- 
tions about the creation of the world, or the wan- 
derings of the Israelites, to do with this? Let us 
rest on the evidence given by the holy counsels and 
beautiful life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and leave 


these other matters in their proper place, side by — 


side with old records about Egypt or Nineveh.” 

How will you reply to such reasoning? You 
will often meet with it, both in books and conver- 
sation. 

It may seem very easy at first, some will say, 
coolly to sever the link between the Old and New 
Testaments, but in point of fact we shall find that 
the two must stand or fall together. Our Lord and 


INTRODUCTION. . 19 


his apostles and evangelists have deliberately, if we 
may venture sp to say, staked their own mission 
and their character, not only as teachers sent from 
God, but even (taking lower ground) as ¢ruthful 
teachers, on the Old Testament. It is referred to 
at every page; its very histories are quoted contin- 
ually as ¢rve histories; its prophecies mentioned as 
fulfilled. The Lord Jesus Christ appeals to Moses 
- and the prophets in support of his own divine mis- 
sion. He comes (in his own words) to fulfil the 
law. He declares that no jot or tittle of it can pass 
away. He gives his life to save men from the pun- 
ishment they had merited in transgressing its com- 
mands. Moses wrote of him, he says. He comes 
as the Messiah, promised first to Adam and Eve at 
the fall, then to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then 
by the lips of Moses, then by David, and the whole 
line of prophets. His mission, as his own teaching 
testifies, must stand or fall with the Old Testament. 

“Oh, but,” the objectors reply, “we must re- 
member that, as a man, our Lord was a Jew, and of 
course his knowledge of history could not be ex- 
pected to be better than that of other Jews. He 
was sent on earth, not to teach us earthly wisdom, 
but heavenly truth, and therefore we have no more 
right to look for perfectly clear historical teaching 


20 INTRODUCTION. 


from him than for a system of natural philosophy : 


or chemistry.” 
How will you reply to this ? 


By pointing out that the truth of the Old Tes- 


tament narrative is essentially connected with the 


very thing he came on earth to teach us. If an 


ambassador comes to our country from another 
land, it may not signify to us whether he is per- 


fectly instructed or no in heraldry or antiquarian 
lore, or even in the early history of his own coun- 


try ; but if he is not clear on the subject of his cre- 


dentials—the certificates of his being a real ambas- | 


sador, sent by the government of his own country ; 


if he brings papers which cannot be verified and: 
authenticated, there must be an end of all confi-. 


dence in him. 
Now, the truth of the Old Testament history is 
inseparably involved, so to speak, in the credentials 


of our Lord as the founder of our religion. He 


came, not merely as a divine Teacher, not only, 


even, as the Son of God sent to save us, but as the 
centre to which the whole of the Old Testament: 
history points. He came, distinctly and expressly, 


by his own declaration, as the promised Messiah, 
as the Seed of the Woman, announced in the third 


chapter of Genesis, who was to crush the power of. 


INTRODUCTION. 21 


the Serpent and redeem man from the consequen- 
ces of the fall. He came as the antitype of the 
Passover Lamb (as declared by John the Baptist, 
clearly with His own sanction), as the Redeemer 
and Saviour represented by the Brazen Serpent in 
the wilderness, and by the bloody sacrifices under 
the law of Moses. He declared himself to be the 
Prophet whom Moses had announced in the Book 
of Deuteronomy. He declared himself to be the 
true Bread from heaven typified by the Manna, the 
true Temple of God, the true King of the Jews, the 
Son of David and yet his Lord. If he was deceived 
in these credentials of his, all based on the Old 
Testament history, he could nat have been a true 
‘Messenger sent from God. And if he were zo?, and 
yet declared himself to be one, he, and his disciples 
also, must. either have been the wildest and mad- 
dest of enthusiasts and fanatics, or the most un- 
scrupulous of impostors. We cannot escape this 
dilemma, and no one has ever been able to explain. 
it away. If we would receive Jesus as our Lord 
and Master, our Saviour, Prophet, Priest, and 
King—and to do less than this is virtually to re- 
ject him—we must, if we would be commonly rea- 
sonable and honest, receive the Old Testament 
_ histories on which he based his mission. 


22 INTRODUCTION. 


The difficulties which are felt by many in the 3 


study of the Old Testament history may be gener- 
ally referred to three principal heads. 

Under the first are comprised all that may be 
called historical and chronological difficulties, 
namely, the apparent discrepancies in dates, peri- 
ods of time, and the account of certain events. 

Under the second we may class those cases in 
which certain things are related in a manner appa- 
rently inconsistent with the results of the discover- 


ies made by science in modern times in astronomy, - 


geology, and natural philosophy generally. 

The third head comprises what may be called 
moral difficulties, namely, the cases in which ac- 
tions are commended, sanctioned, or even com- 
manded, which seem hard to reconcile with our 
belief in God’s infinite justice and mercy. 

Before attempting to notice these difficulties, as 
they meet us in particular passages, we may make 
a few general remarks on each class respectively. 

With regard to the first, or historical, class of 
difficulties, the simplest way of meeting them is 
this: We cannot pretend to explain or reconcile all 
the apparent discrepancies which present them- 
selves ; but we can safely affirm that they are no 


more than might be reasonably expected before-  - 


- Ne oni - - 
Dt tt th ee i Be ee 


INTRODUCTION. 23 


hand in histories so ancient and so fragmentary as 
those of the Old Testament. To judge of them as 
we judge of an event recorded in our newspapers, 
or even in one of our modern histories, would be 
simply absurd and unreasonable. And yet we do 
continually meet with discrepancies in narratives 
of recent events both in histories and newspapers. 
But shere we have, sooner or later, the means of 
- gaining information which enables us to reconcile 
the apparent contradictions ; not always at first, for 
we know how often the account of some public 
transaction is recorded in some journal or reported 
letter, contradicted, explained, one account collated 
with another, before we gain a clear idea of the true 
state of the case, We know how many hot and pro- 
longed controversies have been carried on between 
modern historians about certain events recorded, 
and how difficult it often is to come to any conclu- 
sion at all satisfactory. And this with regard to 
transactions on which a perfect blaze of light has 
been thrown by contemporary memoirs, letters, ar- 
chives, and chronicles of every kind. If we some- 
times fail to fit the dissected map of history cor- 
rectly in the bright gaslight of modern days, is it 
wonderful that we should fail when we have only 
_ the faint and feeble lamp of records made almost 


24 INTRODUCTION. 


before what we call ancient history had even be- 
gun? 7 

Archbishop Whately, in his little book entitled 
“ Historic Doubts on the Existence of Napoleon 
Bonaparte,” points out how easily the history of 
the first fifteen years of this century might appear 
to be a mere tissue of contradictions if related in 
the loose, unconnected manner in which Scripture 
history is given. | 

The same may be said of many other occurren- 
ces in modern history; the conquest of Mexico by 
Cortez may be cited as one example out of many. 
If that wonderful and romantic history had been 
written as Scripture history is written, and judged 
ds skeptical writers judge Scripture history, it is 
utterly impossible it could stand such an ordeal. 

And yet there is no page of modern history— 
scarcely any even of ancient or of medizval—in 
which we have not more means of getting at the 
full truth than we have in the case of Scripture. 
The different’and rival historians, as it were, check 
each other’s accounts; even in the histories of 
Rome and Greece this is found. And yet plenty 
of discrepancies quite as great as those of Scripture 
can be found in all these records; and if we hear 
less of them it is because the acceptance or rejec- 


INTRODUCTION. 25 


‘tion of profane histories does not concern the ac- 
ceptance or rejection of any great and important 
truths. | 

Then, if it be asked, Why could not the sacred 
writers have been inspired so to write as to avoid 
the possibility of mistakes? the answer is, that they 
were not commissioned to give us a detailed record 
of ancient history, but to throw light on those inci- 
dents which relate to the dealings of God with man. 
This was the main end and scope of their narra- 
tive, and everything which did not concern this was 
irrelevant, and therefore set aside. 

Now, no one blames a narrator who undertakes 
to deal exclusively with one class of subjects be- 
cause he does not bestow equal attention on all 
other subjects. No one expects, for instance, that 
a professedly geological or botanical description of 
some foreign country should also contain a minute 
description of the manners and customs of its in- 
habitants, or a record of its political history. And 
so, it is not fair to complain if the Scripture narra- 
tives are given, in one point of view, imperfectly, as 
long as they fulfil (as they evidently do) the mazz 
object for which they were compiled. 

With regard to the second class of objections— 
those which may contain what we may call the scz- 


Revealed Religion. 4 


25 INTRODUCTION. 


entific difficulties—nearly the same answer will meet 
them. Scripture was not intended to teach us the 
truths which we can discover for ourselves, such as 
those of geology, astronomy, and natural philoso- 
phy: it was given us to teach us what we could zo 
by any wisdom find out for ourselves, namely, what 
God has done for man, and what his will is with 
regard to us. 

In relating natural occurrences, they are stated 
as phenomena, that is to say, as they appear to our 
eyes. And, after all, this is the way we habitually 
state them. We speak of “the sun rising and set- 
ting,” etc., in ordinary narratives. In a scientific 
treatise this might be called incorrect, but not in a 
narrative of every-day transactions. And we have ~ 
no right to cavil at the Scripture writers for ex- 
pressing themselves just as ordinary writers do, 
namely, describing what passed as it would appear 
to the eye of an uninstructed man.* 

With regard to the third great class of difficul- 
ties, those, namely, which concern the character of 
actions permitted or commanded in Scripture, we 
shall generally find that these difficulties are all 
finally referable to one great and mighty mystery 
which no man, whether Christian, Deist, or Atheist, — 


* See Note A, Appendix. 


INTRODUCTION. 24 


has been ever able to solve, namely, the Origin of 
Evil. The question, “Why was evil permitted in 
the world?” is one which, with our present limited 
faculties, we cannot expect to answer. And we do 
not escape the difficulty by rejecting Christianity. 
It is quite true, as has often been remarked, that 
we can see how wonderfully the power and goodness 
of God have been displayed in the combat with evil, 
and most especially in the glorious scheme of Man’s 
Redemption, which could not have taken place but 
for man’s ruined and lost condition. In this way, 
as we may clearly see, good has been brought out 
of evil, and man’s fall and its terrible consequences 
have been so ordered as to manifest the wisdom, 
power, and love of our Creator and Redeemer with 
- marvellous force and brilliancy. But, again, if the 
objection were raised, “ Could not equal good have 
been effected in another way without these terrible 
evils?” the wisest man must remain as unable as 
the most ignorant child to answer such a question. 
It may well be that in the nature of things there 
should be an absolute impossibility that good should 
be effected without the permission of evil. We can 
see that if man were so hedged in as to be unable 
to choose the wrong way, he would really be inca- 
pable of practising what we call virtue. And it may 


28 INTRODUCTION. 


be that if we could understand all fully, we should 
see that throughout the whole creation, to effect 
good without any evil being permitted may be as 
utterly impossible as we can see it is for the three 
angles of a triangle to make anything but two nght 
angles, or for two and two to make anything but 
four. 

But in our present state, and with our limited 
powers, we are not qualified to judge of this: we 
can only accept what God tells us, on the statement 
of his word. To attempt to meet such difficulties 
by reasoning would be as idle as for one ignorant of 
ship-building to try and prove that a certain vessel 
was seaworthy. If he has faith in the skill and 
honesty of the builder, he has good reason for be- 
lieving, on the strength of that builder’s assurance, 
that the ship is fit for sailing ; but it is quite out of 
his province to prove, by reasoning, a matter with 
which he is wholly unacquainted. 

In fact, in all that concerns such questions, we 
are as unable to form a judgment, as a man born 
blind would be to discuss the uses of a telescope. 
It is said that when the blind mathematician San- 
_derson was asked if he would desire to have the gift 
of sight to carry on his researches, he replied that 
he thought arms long enough to reach and touch 


INTRODUCTION. — 29 


the sun and moon would be much more useful. 
This answer shows that he was utterly unable to 
conceive what sight really was, and could not there- 
fore judge of its powers. 

But may there not be many things connected 
with the mysterious questions we have alluded to, 
and others besides, which are as completely out of 
the reach of our powers of comprehension as the 
idea of sight was to the blind philosopher? And if 
so—and we cannot at all events be sure that it is 
not so—is it not the part of wisdom to rest content- 
ed with exercising our judgment on such things as 
do lie within the grasp of our powers, trusting the 
rest to that merciful Creator whom we have abun- 
_dant reason for trusting, who has given us proofs of 
his wisdom and love, and who has revealed to us in 
his word that the evil whose existence is so great a 
difficulty to us now will be eventually triumphed 
over and overcome by his power ? 

We may now proceed to consider in detail some 
of the objections we are most likely to meet with 
against the Old Testament history. We shall not 
attempt to enter into all that has been said or can 
be said on both sides; this would be a work to fill 
_ many volumes, and would hardly be of use to ordi- 
nary readers; all we attempt to do here is to indi- 


een INTRODUCTION. 


cate the substance of the principal popular objec- 
tions, if we may so call them, which are generally 
brought forward, and the line it is best for those 
not possessed of deep learning, or practised in con- 
troversy, to take in answering them. Even if we 
should not be called on to give direct answers in 
conversation or writing, these rejoinders may help 
us, in our solitary reflections, to clear up difficulties 
which might otherwise painfully perplex us, and 
doubts which might harass us, and even have a 
deadening influence on our spiritual life. 


OBJECTIONS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


SECGRIONE TES 


DISCREPANCIES IN NARRATIVE, CHRONOLOGY, 
ETC, 


OBJECTION I. That the description of Cain’s 
crime and its punishment is totally inconsistent 
with the previous history, which seems to imply 
that he and his brother were the only inhabitants 
of the earth. How, in this case, could Cain have 
cause to fear that other men would pursue him and 
slay him? 

ANSWER. This assumes a great deal more than 
the narrative requires. We are not told how many 
years elapsed, after Cain and Abel became grown 
men, before the event which led to the first murder ; 
nor can we tell how many among the “sons and 
_ daughters,” who are afterwards mentioned as born 
to Adam and Eve, may have been born and grown 
up and became parents themselves, before Cain 


32 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


went forth as a wanderer. The history is so loosely — 
stated, that it leaves room for a variety of conjec- 
tures; and though it would be premature to build 
on them as certainties, with the very limited knowl- 
edge that we possess, still, unless they could be 
proved untenable, the difficulty in the narrative 
could not be regarded as insurmountable. It is cer- 
tain that among scattered pastoral tribes, leading a 
nomadic life, the members of a family may easily 
be separated so as to become virtually almost stran- 
gers in no long space of time; and in the days when 
there was but one family on the earth, this would 
even more easily happen than in later times. 

OpyECTION 2. That the sacrifices prescribed in 
the Levitical law could not (except under supposi- 
tions which involve actual absurdity) be performed 
during the wanderings of the Israelites in the wil- 
derness. 

Answer. We may reply that it is a wholly gra- 
tuitous supposition to assume that they were so 
offered. We are apt sometimes to forget, in read- 
ing the history, that in the first instance the Israel- 
ites had clearly been intended only to spend a short 
time in the desert on their way to the land of Ca- 
naan. The Law, and all its minute and full cere- 
monial requisitions, were given on this supposition. 


CHRONOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL. 33 


They were directed to make offerings of corn, first- 
fruits, etc., which could not have been made till they 
had taken up their abode in the Land of Promise. 
meewhev. 2:12, P4 }.2210-14, 22; etc, 

When the national act of rebellion and disobe- 
dience, recorded in Numbers 14, brought on the 
whole of that generation the punishment which con- 
demned them to wander forty years in the wilder- 
ness, they were, in fact, placed by their sin in a 
state of virtual excommunication. But the mercy 
of God, to show them that he would never finally 
desert them, and to keep in mind the necessity of 
atonement, devised the institution of the Red Heif- 
er, which could be offered up even in their wander- 
ing life without difficulty, and serve, as it were, as 
a kind of substitute, during their stay in the wilder- 
ness, for those more elaborate sacrifices which it 
would have been scarcely possible to carry out du- 
ring a wandering life in the desert. 

It is supposed by some that this necessary post- 
ponement of the full observance of the law is allu- 
ded to in Amos 5:25. The question, “Have ye 
offered unto me sacrifices and burnt-offerings forty 
years in the wilderness?” certainly seems to imply 
that they had not done so.* 


* See Bishop Wordsworth’s Commentary. 


Revealsd Religion, 5 


34. OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


re) 


OpjEcTION 3. That many of the accounts of bat- 
tles, changes of government, and other transactions, 
especially in the Books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, 
and Chronicles, contain great discrepancies in chro- 
nology, and in many cases equally considerable ones 
in the narration of events, which with the closest 
examination it is found impossible to explain or to 
harmonize. 

ANSWER. We have already, in the Introduction, 
discussed this point, and therefore it is not needful 
to enter into details here. It is true that there are 
several of these narrations against which objection 
has been made, which even an unlearned reader, 
carefully studying his English Bible, comparing 
passage with passage, and using his common sense 
(which some people are apt to think superfluous in 
matters connected with religion), will find he can 
reconcile and explain without difficulty. 

But though this is a most profitable and inter- 
esting occupation in our own private studies, it is 
generally safer, in arguing with objectors, to abstain 
from attempting explanation of these points. We 
may succeed in many instances, perhaps, in clear- 
ing up the difficulty ; but fresh cases will be brought 
forward, and some of these, for want of the neces- 
sary data, it will be found impossible to harmonize 


ee Le Oe 


CHRONOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL. 3 


~] 
satisfactorily. Then the champion of Scripture 
truth stands in the position of one vanquished by 
the arguments of his adversaries ; and this, as be- 
fore observed, may not only weaken his cause, but 
react injuriously on his own mind. The safest 
ground to take is the ground our adversaries would 
take if the same objections were urged against the 
histories of Greece and Rome. They would at 
once reply, if attacked on these points, that the 
discrepancies and inconsistencies in those early 
histories are only formidable from the want of the 
data which would enable us to reconcile them could 
we fill up the blanks in the accounts. We have 
only to ask our opponents to exercise the same can- 
dor in respect to Scripture narrative which they do 
in reference to ancient profane histories. 

With regard to chronology, we know so little of 
the earliest modes of computing time and number, 
that the greatest wonder would be if the early rec- 
ords could be perfectly clear. Of one thing we may 
be certain: that if the Scripture histories had been 
the work of impostors intending to deceive, they 
would have taken good care to smooth away all 
irregularities of this kind in their records. 


36 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


SEGALON iis 


DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED WITH QUESTIONS OF 
SCIENCE, NATURAL HISTORY, AND WHAT MAY 
BE CALLED THE PHYSICAL WONDERS RELATED 
IN SCRIPTURE. 


OpjECTION I. That the account of the creation, 
as given in Genesis I, is one which involves impos- 
sibilities and absurdities; for the creation of the 
whole world and all its productions in six days is 
utterly inconceivable: the discoveries of geologists 
have proved that the surface of the earth has been 
subjected to a number of changes, which, judging 
from the time we see required by analogous pro- 
cesses, could not be effected in less time than thou- 
sands of years. Also, that the order of creation, as 
there described, could not have taken place in the 
manner stated; as we see traces of repeated crea- 
tions of vegetables, animals, etc., many races of 
each having apparently passed away and been suc- 
ceeded by others, belonging, to all appearance, to 
a much earlier period than any of which we have 
records. 

Answer. In the first place, we have no means 


a 


SCIENTIFIC OB $ECTIONS. 37 


of ascertaining what periods of time were repre- 
sented by the “days” of creation. The mention 
of “evening and morning” does not certainly prove 
that they were days like ours, twenty-four hours 
long ; in fact, before the sun and stars were visible 
they could not have been altogether answering to 
what we call “days.” And we have evidence from 
other parts of Scripture that the word “day” is 
not exclusively used for a period of twenty-four 
hours.* 

In the second place, even allowing that the 
“days” were what we now call days, we cannot, 
with our limited knowledge, venture to assert con- 
fidently that a process which we see effected only 
in a certain number of years, could never, under 
different conditions, take place in less time. We 
cannot tell to what extent even the natural forces 
with which we are acquainted might, under certain 
conditions, be increased in intensity, and might 
therefore work more rapidly than appears now con- 
ceivable to us. 

Thirdly, we are not told, nor have we any means 
of conjecturing, how long a period may have elapsed 


* Hugh Miller, in his “* Testimony of the Rocks,” has discussed 
this point with force and clearness. He and others are of opinion 
that the “days” were long periods of time of uncertain duration. 


38 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


between the “beginning,” in which God “created 
the heaven and the earth,” and the time when the 
earth is described as “without form and void.” 
That interval may have lasted thousands of years, 
in the course of which many changes may have 
taken place. 

It is remarkable that the word “created” (dara, 
in the Hebrew), used in the first verse, is never 
used again throughout the first chapter of Genesis, 
except in describing the origin of some of the ani- 
mals and of man. In all other cases the word an- 
swering to our word made is employed, a word 
which implies, in all languages, the formation of 
something out of existing materials, in contradis- 
tinction to “creation.” An original invention is 
described in common speech as a creation; but 
_ houses, machines, etc., are made.*™ 

Observe, that in suggesting these solutions, we 
must be on our guard against the temptation to 
choose whichever of them best satisfies our own 
mind, and then to insist on it as a truth which can- 
not be disputed, and expect our adversary to accept 
it. If we do this, we are only setting up a mark 
for the enemy to fire at. He will try to prove our 
theory to be non-conclusive, and if he can over- 


* See Note B, Appendix. 


SCIENTIFIC OB $ECTIONS. 39 


throw it he will think he has effectually vanquished 
us ; nay, may perhaps half persuade us that the vic- 
tory is on his side. What we have to do is to take 
our stand on a ground from which we cannot be 
driven, namely, the possibility (we might well say, 
probability) of solutions existing to all these diffi- 
culties 2f we could know or understand them. The 
solutions we have alluded to as conceivable and no- 
wise incredible may not, any one of them, be the 
true one; but the circumstance of our being able, 
even with our imperfect data, to perceive the fossz- 
bility of some one of them being true, may show us 
that other explanations may exist, even if these do 
not hold good. 

We have no right to assume as certain, for in- 
stance, that thousands of years passed between the 
“beginning,” when the heavens and earth were cre- 
ated, and the time when the earth was described as 
“without form and void ;” but we certainly cannot 
venture to assume that thousands of years may wot 
have elapsed. And while we see that any one of 
the suppositions named would entirely harmonize 
with the Scripture narrative, we have no right to 
complain of that narrative as irreconcilable with the 
discoveries of science. The account in the Book of 
Genesis states nothing which contradicts in any 


4o OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


way these discoveries ; all it affirms is, that there 
was a time-—early or late—when this created world 
was in a state of chaos. And as we see every day 
houses which have been built for years reduced to 
a state very like chaos in the process of rebuilding 
and altering, this need not shock even our limited 
experience. 

But we must keep in mind that we have no right 
to speak of any transaction as zmposszble, unless we 
are in a position to judge of the circumstances un- 
der which it took place, which of course we never 
can in the case of the Creation. 

OpjECTION 2. That the account of the first ap- 
pearance of light, and of the sun, moon, and stars, 
is given as if our earth, which we know to be a 
mere speck in the universe, was the centre at least 
of our planetary system, and as if the sun, moon, 
and stars were only created to give light to our 
little world. 

Answer. It is not said either that light was 
then and there created, or that the sun and moon 
were, The word “created,” as we observed before, 
is never used in relation either to light generally or 
the heavenly bodies. “Let there be light,” only 
implies a command that light should appear then 
and there, not that it had never existed before. The 


SCIENTIFIC OB SECTIONS. 41 


whole history of the creation is given only as con- 
cerns our earth. The “lights” in the heaven were 
caused to appear, and made available for the use of 
the earth after the earth was created. Whether 
this was done by clearing away some thick mist or 
cloud which had obscured the light, or in what 
other manner, it is of course impossible to say; but 
it is clear that the expression, “God made two great 
lights,” no more implies that they were at that mo- 
ment called into existence, than the expression, 
“making a fire,’ would imply that fire had never 
existed before. 

We must never lose sight of this important 
truth, that the histories of the Bible relate solely to 
PHENOMENA as seen by our eyes, and have no refer- 
ence to the causes of those phenomena. To explain 
these would have been foreign to the purpose for 
which the history was written; and we have no 
more right to complain of their unscientific and 
popular language than we have of a modern narra- 
tive (as before observed) for alluding to the “ wax- 
ing and waning of the moon,” etc. 

OBJECTION 3. That the accounts of the extraor- 
dinary length of life of the early patriarchs, and the 
gradual cessation of that length of life after the 
Deluge, seem utterly unaccountable and incredi- 


Reveale?} Retigion, 6 


A2 OLD TESTAMENT DIFHICULTIES. 


ble on any rational grounds, and contrary to our 
daily experience. 

ANSWER. The circumstance that in our days 
the life of man seldom exceeds by many years the 
“three score and ten” of the Psalmist, does not at 
all exclude the possibility of its lasting longer un- 
der different circumstances. Jt would be very rash 
to conclude that, because certain plants in our coun- 
tries never exceed a given height, therefore it is im- 
possible they should attain a greater one in a differ- 
ent climate and soil. 

We cannot, of course, venture to give a decided 
opinion where so little is known; but some have 
conjectured that the use of the tree of life by our 
first parents, who doubtless ate of it before they 
left the Garden of Eden (the wording of the origi- 
nal by no means excluding that supposition), may 
have had an effect on their descendants, which was 
not exhausted for a considerable time, in strength- 
ening their constitutions and enabling them to re- 
sist the progress of decay.* 

OxjEction 4. That the account of Noah’s build- 
ing the ark is a description of a work utterly impos- 
sible to accomplish ; for that such an erection could 
not have stood in the water, or floated ; and that (as 

* See Note C, Appendix. 


SCIENTIFIC OB FECTIONS. 43 


the Zulu observed to Dr. Colenso) it is impossible 
that so large a number of animals of all kinds should 
have been able to find their way into the ark, and 
voluntarily to enter and remain there. 

ANSWER. As to the first part of the objection, 
we may observe that we are not in a position to 
judge of the possibility of the ark’s floating. We 
cannot be sure of rightly understanding the mean- 
ing of the terms used in the Book of Genesis; and 
even if we did, we know too little of the circum- 
stances under which the vessel was built to be able 
to form anything like a clear idea of its construc- 
tion, and therefore to judge as to its probable suc- 
cess. 

With regard to the second part of the objection, 
the answer is still more simple. We may ask our 
opponents in their turn, “ How do you undertake 
to explain the equally wonderful things which take 
place every day, when birds, bees, and fishes find 
their way through trackless forests and up rivers, 
for hundreds of miles, to procure food for thei: 
young, or deposit their eggs in a suitable place?” 
If you reply, “ Their instinct leads them,” we an- 
swer, “Why should not He who gave that instinct 
for their guidance in their ordinary life, be able, if 
he saw fit, to endow them on that special occasion 


44 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


with the instinct to lead them to the only refuge 
from impending death ?” 

OBJECTION 5. That it is impossible that animals 
representing all existing species could be at once 
contained in any one habitation, however large, or 
that food sufficient to sustain so many creatures for 
so long a time could be contained in any one place. 

ANSWER. It is quite gratuitous to assume that 
the ark contained representatives of all the species 
of animals now existing. 

Both in the animal and vegetable world, an infi- 
nite number of varieties often spring from one genus, 
and those varieties may at last become so fixed and 
definite as to be called sfecies. But reckoning them 
only as varieties, how numerous are the races that 
have sprung from the human species alone; and in 
the case of the dog and some other animals, the dif- 
ferences are even more marked. Weare not obliged 
to believe that all the varieties which are now known 
existed at that early period, or that it was requisite 
that even every existing variety should be repre- 
sented, All that the Scripture account implies is 
that there should be a pair to represent every class 
of animals then existing, and a sevenfold represen- 
tation of the few kinds used in sacrifice, including 
only one species of birds, and three of ruminant 


SCIENTIFIC ‘OB ¥ECTIONS. 45 


animals alone. Therefore it is quite conceivable 
that the ark may not have contained many more 
animals than a large menagerie.* 

OpjEcTION 6. That if the Flood, as described in 
Genesis 6 and 7, had spread itself over the whole 
earth, effects would have been produced, and traces 
left, which must have been perceptible at the pres- 
ent day: also, that it seems, on such a supposition, 
difficult, if not impossible, to account for the circum- 
stance of the animals in some parts of the world, in 
Australia especially, differing so widely in their lead- 
ing characteristics from those of the “Old World ;” 
as, had their. representatives been in the ark, we 
should naturally have expected to find them scatter- 
ed over all parts of the earth. 

Answer. The force of this objection has nothing 
really to do with the truth of the narrative in Gen- 
esis. The account of the Deluge given there does 
not necessarily imply that it spread over the whole 
globe. All that is implied is that the whole of the 
human race was destroyed, and therefore the inhab- 
ited part of the earth submerged by the flood; but 
we have no reason at all to suppose that at so early 
a period in the world’s history, the whole or even 
the largest part of the earth was peopled. In any 

* See Note D, Appendix. 


46 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


case, the contrary is far more probable, judging from 
the time it takes, with every facility of modern days, 
to people even a whole continent.* 

OpjecTIoN 7. That the Scripture account of the 
confusion of tongues among the builders of the tower 
of Babel involves suppositions which are incredible ; 
that it is impossible to account either for their pun- 
ishment or for their dispersion, on the grounds there 
stated ; and that the traces of a common origin to 
all languages, which have been generally observed 
by philologists, render the whole history of the “con- 
fusion of tongues” highly improbable. 

Answer. Both friends and enemies of the cause 
have perplexed the question, by taking for granted 
what has not been expressly stated in Scripture. The 
cause of God’s displeasure is not distinctly stated ; 
but that the building of the tower must have in- 
volved an act of disobedience is plainly to be infer- 
red; and many who have studied the subject close- 
ly believe that the tower was intended to be used 
as an idol temple. 

With regard to the miracle of dispersion, the 
original does not enable us decidedly to state its 
nature ; if,as is generally supposed, it was a sudden 
confusion in the spoken language, it is surely quite 

* See Note E, Appendix. 


SCIENTIFIC OB ¥ECTIONS. 47 


conceivable that the common tongue should be 
changed in an instant into the various dialects, which 
do, in point of fact, originally spring from one source, 
from which they, usually, have deviated gradually 
and slowly, as the Italian and French from Latin, 
and the northern languages from Gothic. In such 
a case the miracle worked would simply have been 
to produce an effect suddenly, which is generally the 
work of time: and its suddenness would be quite 
sufficient (producing, as it naturally would, great 
dismay and alarm in those who were the objects of 
‘it) to account for the builders, in their bewilder- 
ment, abandoning their half-finished work. 

But some expositors have doubted whether the 
miracle in question was one of confusion of spoken 
language at all. They incline to believe that the 
confusion was one not of speech, but of worship ; 
and the word in the original, “lip,” would certainly 
bear this interpretation better than that of “ tongue.” 
The word “lip” is frequently used in the Bible for 
“worship ;” for example, in Hosea 14:2, and the 
almost parallel passage in Hebrews 13:12. And 
in Zephaniah 3:9, the words—“For then will I 
turn to the people a pure language, that they may all 
call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with 
one consent ’—the word in the margin is “lip,” not 


48 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


“language,”’—and the context shows that worship, 
not merely speech, was there meant. 

This, and other considerations, have led some 
to think that a confusion of worship, and not of 
tongues, was the miracle wrought at Babel; viz., 
disputes as to which god should be adored in the 
temple they were building, or as to the mode of wor- 
shipping him: which would appear likely to produce 
a more permanent division among the workers than 
any difficulty in making themselves understood, as 
our daily experience testifies in our own times, when 
workmen of various nations‘are continually emigra- 
ting to other countries, and joining in the labors of 
those whose speech is at first unintelligible to them. 
But the question is not one at all important to de- 
cide, since either way the account is perfectly intel- 
ligible.* 3 

OxsyEctIon 8. That the miracle recorded in Joshua 
10, of the “sun standing still,” is one which could 
not have taken place as described: since it must 
have involved the entire overthrow, for the time, of 
the solar system, and even could this have taken 
place without the inhabitants of the earth being 
utterly destroyed, traces of it must have been dis- 
cernible to this day. The same may be said of the 


* See Note F, Appendix. 


SCIENTIFIC OB FECTIONS. 49 


moving backwards of the shadow of the dial of 
Ahaz, on the occasion of the sickness and recovery 
of Hezekiah. 

ANSWER. In considering these questions, we can- 
not be too careful to keep in mind what has already 
been pointed out—that all the accounts of natural 
wonders in Scripture relate exclusively to phenome- 
ma, and are not concerned with the causes of those 
phenomena. A picture, as it were, is given us of 
the scene as it would strike an ordinary observer, 
and we are left to draw our own conclusions as to 
the means used to effect these outward manifesta- 
tions. 

In the present case, we may take notice that the 
expression, “the sun stood still,’ cannot be taken 
literally by any one who believes in the Coperni- 
can system—as all educated persons do in our day. 
We know that what really moves is the earth, not 
the sun: and consequently, when Joshua address- 
ed the sun, his invocation could only be answered 
by some appearance in the heavens which would 
have the effect desired. And a little considera- 
tion may show us that this could be easily done 
without affecting in any way the earth’s motion. 
For we all know that the sun appears to remain 
above the horizon every evening for several min- 


Revealsd Religion. 7 


50 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


utes after his disk has actually sunk below it; the 
refraction of the rays of light producing the same 
effect as if he were actually in the heavens. And 
there is nothing incredible in the idea that such a 
phenomenon might be prolonged by some extra- 
ordinary power, for hours or even days, without 
any alteration in the course of the planets round 
the sun. 

As we already observed, it is safest not to insist 
upon any theory, where all must be a matter of 
conjecture ; it is enough to say that the appearance 
would be all that could be required, and thac this 
effect could be obtained without any of the results 
which would interrupt the ordinary course of nature. 
It is worthy of note, indeed, that two sets or pairs 
of words are used for “sun and moon” in the origi- 
nal Hebrew, in different parts of the Old Testa- 
ment, one set appearing to designate the disks of 
the two heavenly bodies respectively, the other the 
rays of light issuing from them ; and that the latter 
is the one used in Joshua. 

All this may be alleged on the ordinary suppo- 
sition that prolonged light was what Joshua requir- 
ed; but some authorities are of the opinion that the 
whole narrative wonld rather imply that darkness, 
not light, was needed, to continue the battle which 


SCIENTITFIC OB FECTIONS. bid 


had begun at early dawn in the midst of a furious 
hailstorm.* 

And, in this case, the difficulty would be yet 
more quickly solved ; as it is even easier to conjec- 
ture many ways in which prolonged darkness could 
be obtained, than in the case of light. 

With regard to the other kindred miracle, the 
retreating of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz, Isa. 
38; 2 Kings 20:10, it has been suggested that as 
_the dial appears (from the marginal reading) to have 
been constructed as a flight of steps, on which the 
sun's shadow would gradually fall as it rose in the 
heavens, either a slight earthquake (no uncommon 
thing in those lands), which would have altered, 
for the time, the position of the steps, or a partial 
solar eclipse, making the shadow fall lower, would 
produce the effect described. And the circumstance 
oi the Chaldean ambassadors coming from Assyria, 
where astronomy was so much studied, to inquire 
about the “wonder that was done in the land,’ 
proves both that it was a phenomenon of a kind 
peculiarly likely to interest them, and also that its 
action was confined to Palestine. 

It is remarkable that the allusion to the curios- 
ity of the Chaldeans as to the “wonder,” is only 

* See Note G, Appendix. 


52 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


made in Chronicles, where that wonder is not rela- 
ted. In Isaiah and Kings, where it is, the visit is 
only spoken of as one of inquiry and condolence 
after the sickness of Hezekiah. Had the history 
been drawn up by an impostor, we should never 
have found this unstudied coincidence of the two 
different accounts, which thus fit so exactly into 
each other. 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 53 


wal ig Sed LO ad Le 


APPARENT MORAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE OLD 
TESTAMENT HISTORY. 


OBJECTION I. That it seems inconsistent with 
the justice and mercy of God to punish the whole 
human race, in the persons of our first parents, for 
so apparently trifling a fault as that of eating the 
fruit of a tree which had been forbidden. 

ANSWER. We have no right to measure the great- 
ness or smallness of disobedience, in any case, by 
the greatness or smallness of the act in which it 
consists. A very trifling action, in itself, has often 
occasioned fatal consequences. The opening of a 
small postern gate by which an enemy could enter 
has caused the destruction of a city, and perhaps 
may have involved the fall of a nation. The stroke 
of a pen has brought men to the gallows. A tri- 
fling act of disobedience in a soldier on guard has 
often been punished with death. A spark let fall 
on a mine or powder magazine has caused wide- 
spread destruction. 

Even with our limited vision, we can see what 


s4 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


mighty and fearful results may follow from what 
might be called trifling acts. How much more, 
then, can He in whose eyes nothing is either great 
or small, as we. judge it, and who, reading the in- 
most thoughts of the heart, can see in small indica- 
tions the signs of a deadly evil! 

Man was put upon his trial—and his failure was 
as apparent in an instance seemingly so trifling, as 
it would have been in a matter which we might 
think more weighty and important in itself. 

Why men.could not be prevented from sinning 
altogether—why sin must entail such terrible con- 
sequences—these are questions we cannot attempt 
to answer. They are referable, as observed before, 
to the painful mystery of the origin of evil. We 
see that sin exists in the world ; that it makes itself 
manifest in the best-ordered communities, in the 
happiest and most carefully-trained families, and in 
the finest natural characters. We see every day 
that sin, even when committed under circumstances 
which afford more excuse than with our first pa- 
rents, still often brings with it a heavy punishment, 
and its consequences sometimes entail bitter suffer- 
ing on the children and even remote descendants 
of the sinner. The intemperate man bequeaths 
sickness—the criminal, a tarnished name—the 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 53 


spendthrift, poverty—to his children. Sad as it is 
to see the innocent suffer from the guilt of their 
parents, we cannot escape the difficulty by denying 
revelation. It is wisest for us to own humbly that 
it belongs to the large class of subjects on which 
the wisest of mankind can only say, “I do not 
know.” Revelation does not undertake to tell us 
the cause; but it points out the remedy which God 
has provided in the great scheme of redemption. 
And those who think they can escape the difficulty 
by rejecting the cure, act like a sick person who 
should refuse to accept the remedy offered him by 
his physician, unless it should be accompanied by 
an explanation how he caught the disease. 

OBJECTION 2. That it is impossible a merciful 
Creator would have commanded Joshua and his 
companions to put all the inhabitants of Canaan to 
the sword, such a proceeding being quite inconsis- 
tent with what we read elsewhere of his goodness 
and long-suffering. 

ANSWER. It is quite true that Joshua and the 
other judges of Israel were not commissioned to 
act in the spirit of the gospel. Our Lord himself 
drew a strong contrast between the two dispensa- 
tions, when he rebuked his apostles for wishing to 
call down fire from heaven. But because the gos- 


36 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


pel dispensation is one of mercy and longsuffering, 
we have no right to conclude that God can never 
deal with men differently. In that very gospel we 
are shown that he can and will punish offenders. 
And we cannot look around us in the natural 
world without seeing proofs of his sometimes visit- 
ing men with manifestations of his power to destroy. 
Earthquakes, hurricanes, pestilences, and famines 
inflict even greater and more widespread destruction 
and suffering than the judgments on the Canaanites, 
and that with less apparent reason. We can only 
rest, in such cases, on the belief that such things 
must be permitted for reasons we cannot compre- 
hend, and that the Judge of all the earth must do 
right. But, in the case of the Canaanites, it is clear 
from the allusions made in the Old Testament, that 
their wickedness was of so deep and abominable a 
character as to make their very existence on the 
face of the earth a mighty evil. When we read of 
the fearful cruelties perpetrated in honor of their 
idols by many heathen nations, as, for instance, the 
ancient Mexicans, and the ancient Britons and Sax- 
ons, and of the shocking and abominable crimes 
which are a part of the worship of idolaters, even 
in our own days, we can conceive what a blot on 
creation such a people.as the Canaanites must have 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 57 


been, and how dangerous the example of such neigh- 
bors to a people so prone to imitate other nations, 
and so inclined to idolatry as the Israelites were. 
It must have been as necessary to make an example 
of so wicked and polluted a nation as it is in our 
own days to punish great criminals. And probably 
the execution (say) of three or four desperate char- 
acters, in a year, might bear the same proportion 
to the community where they live and commit their 
crimes, as the whole nation of the Canaanites did 
to the whole inhabited world at that time. The 
execution of the zatzoz was as needful in the case 
‘before us, as that of the zzd@zvzdual in our own days. 
God was pleased to make his servants, Joshua and 
his companions and successors, act as his execu- 
tioners, inflicting his judgments on those whom he 
saw fit to make an example of his severity. And 
the greater barbarism of the time in which they 
lived, enabled them to do this work without incur- 
ring the personal moral hurt which would be expe- 
rienced in our days by any one called on to inflict 
such terrible wholesale destruction, however neces- 
sary. 

In our days, in short, the injury the executzoners 
of these judgments would suffer, might counter- 
balance the good done by the execution of justice, 


Revealed Religion. 8 


> 


53 LD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


and, consequently, God may not now deal with men 
in this way. He who can read the heart doubtless 
knew that Elijah, for example, would not experience 
the same moral injury, in calling down fire from 
heaven on the emissaries of the king, as that which 
James and John would have incurred had ¢ey been 
permitted to do the same. 

That the unconscious children should have been 
involved in the same terrible destruction is indeed 
a painful part of the history; but, first, we must 
remember that in all wars, conquests, or revolu- 
tions, such innocent victims must necessarily suffer, 
and the case of the Canaanites was not different 
from that of many others ; and, secondly, there can 
be no doubt that the children of so wicked a nation, 
had they survived, would have been brought up to 
follow the bad example of their parents. They 
might, indeed, have perished by the hand of those 
very parents, in the frightful sacrifices to Moloch ; 
and if not, they would have lived to be partakers in 
the abominations which their nation practised. It 
was, doubtless, morally impossible they could have 
escaped such a fate; and thus we may consider 
that it was in mercy they were cut off before they 
were conscious of evil. 

The Israelites were chosen to be witnesses of 


“MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 59 


the pure religion of Jehovah, and as his witnesses 
it was needful they-should be kept apart, even, if 
necessary, by stern judgments, from all companion- 
ship with the wicked nations around them. And 
how mercifully, and with what readiness, any indi- 
cations of a better spirit among members even of 
these nations were received and welcomed, is shown 
by the favor accorded to Rahab, in sparing not only 
herself, but her whole house, and permitting her to 
share the honor enjoyed by another Gentile woman, 
Ruth the Moabitess, of being an ancestress of the 
Messiah. 

OBJECTION 3. That the conduct of many who 
commit actions which in gur day would be looked 
on, not only as cruel,-but as base and treacherous, is 
sometimes recorded in such a manner that the read- 
er might be led to think God approved of and sanc- 
tioned such conduct. Under this head may be 
classed the act of Jael to Sisera, Judg. 4 and 5, the 
revolt of Jeroboam, the massacre perpetrated by 
Jehu, etc. 

Answer. A good deal of confusion is caused, 
both in this and other cases, by confounding proph- 
ecy or history with precept. The warnings and 
threats of Scripture have often been fulfilled by 
men who were very far from serving and obeying 


60 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


God. In the Old Testament we meet with frequent 
instances in which God made use of wicked men 
and wicked nations to fulfil his own purposes—as 
‘in the case of Pharaoh, in Egypt, of whom he says, 
“ For this cause have I raised thee up ;’ and again, 
when he made Assyria, Babylon, and finally Rome, 
his instruments of executing judgments on his re- 
bellious people of Israel, on the one hand, and on 
wicked heathen nations who had contended against 
them, on the other. 

But using men as instruments is not the same 
thing as sanctioning or approving their conduct ; it 
merely shows that his power can turn “the wrath 
of man to praise him.” Herod and Pontius Pilate, 
and the unbelieving Jews, were spoken of in the 
apostles’ inspired prayer, in Acts 4, as “ gathered 
together to do whatsoever (His) counsel determined 
before to be done:” and yet they were so far from 
having His sanction, that the Jews were about to 
undergo the sternest judgments as a punishment 
for their conduct to the Saviour He had sent them. 
The words of that Saviour himself were, “It is im- 
possible but that offences must come, but woe to 
him through whom they come,” Luke 17:1. Judas 
himself had been the subject of prophecy ; his be- 
trayal was a fulfilment of the Scriptures ; and yet 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 61 


it was said of him, “It had been good for him that 
he had never been born.” 

In the case of Jael, it is a matter of discussion 
among learned commentators whether the passage 
describing her action may not have been incorrect- 
ly translated, and whether she may not have struck 
down Sisera (instead of killing him in his sleep), 
acting from a Divine commission.* 

But it is not needful for ordinary students to 
enter into this question ; all we need reply to objec- 
tors is, that if she acted by Divine command, she 
was as truly God’s executioner as Joshua and others 
like him; and if not, she must be looked on as one 
of those instruments whom he is pleased to make 
use of, without sanctioning or approving their con- 
-duct ; and Deborah’s praise of her must be regard- 
ed as an enthusiastic outpouring of the patriotic 
exultation of a Hebrew; and not as the authorized 
expression of God’s approval. 

No one can study history, ancient or modern, 
without seeing how often the providence of God 
has so turned the evil designs of wicked men as to 
lead “to consequences ultimately beneficial to the 
world at large. And this overruling power of God's 


* See Bishop Wordsworth’s “Commentary on the Book of 
Judges.” 


62 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


providence, which we are enabled to trace in the 
study of profane history, by watching the course of 
events, is pointed out to us, in sacred history, by 
the express statements of Scripture. 

OBJECTION 4. That in the case of several individ- 
uals, but especially of David, a king is spoken of in 
the Old Testament as accepted by God and approved 
of by him, in spite of his life being stained by many 
actions which we’should regard as highly criminal, 
quite as much so, in some instances, as those of 
other rulers who were rejected by God. David's 
treachery and murder of Uriah, for example, appear 
quite inconsistent with the character given of him 
as “a man after God’s own heart.” 

Answer. In reading the histories of wrong-doing 
related in the Scriptures, we must keep in mind 
that we hear more of the wrong in these accounts, 
because it was blamed and punished; in other 
countries, as we may read in profane histories, the 
same things were done and passed unnoticed. Da- 
vid was punished with a punishment that lasted 
his whole life, for a crime which a heathen king 
would have committed without scruple. Most East- 
ern monarchs would have thought no more of put- 
ting a man to death who interfered in any of their 
schemes or projects, than of brushing away a fly 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 63 


that annoyed them. But we hear of David’s pun- 
ishment and his repentance, and read the outpour- 
ing of his grief for his sin; and therefore the objec- 
tors, who read very coolly of worse things done by 
Greeks and Romans, are eager to find fault with 
the choice of David as God’s especial servant. Men 
have learned higher morality from the Bible, and 
then they turn round and attack their teacher! 

Unless we keep in mind the principle alluded to 
above, we shall be liable to fall into serious mistakes 
in forming our judgments as to the praise or blame 
bestowed on the rulers of God’s chosen people. 
And yet in ordinary life much the same thing oc- 
curs every day. A general or statesman is pro- 
nounced a good one if, besides being efficient and 
able in his calling, he is a thoroughly faithful and 
devoted servant of his government; and even 
though his private life may be far from being stain- 
less, an impartial historian, without excusing or 
glossing over these private blemishes, will still 
declare him a good servant of the state. 

So it was in this case. David was a man after 
God’s own heart, not because he was blameless in 
his life, but because its general tenor was that of 
strict fidelity and loyalty to his Divine Head. 
Throughout his whole checkered life, in spite of 


64 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


many faults and errors, he was thoroughly devoted 
to the Lord. And therefore there is no failure in 
moral discernment when he is pronounced a king 
who was acceptable in God’s sight. His acts of 
real disobedience were few, and always deeply re- 
pented of. 

We must not forget the different standard of 
those semi-barbarous times; and when we see how 
often the purest Christian teaching fails to influence 
men in our days, we should be rather inclined to 
humble ourselves for our shortcomings, under far 
higher privileges, than-to judge harshly of the fail- 
ures of those who had so much fainter a light to 
walk by. : 

OxjECTION 5. That even while we leave on one 
side, as it were, the cases in which cursory readers 
are apt to confound prophecy with precept, in judg- 
ing of doubtful actions recorded in Scripture, there 
remain some incidents which cannot be referred to 
such a class;,cases in which some actions appear 
punished more severely than we should have ex- 
pected beforehand, while others, which seem to us 
really worse, pass comparatively unnoticed. 

Answer. This difficulty is one which includes 
several instances which have puzzled many readers 
who were far from being captious or skeptical, and 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 65 


therefore it will be best to consider some of these 
cases in detail. But first, we may make a few gen- 
eral remarks which will apply to them all. 

In reading this part of the Old Testament, we 
must keep in mind that we are tracing the history 
of a theocracy—that is, of a government in which 
the supreme Head and Governor was the Lord Je- 
hovah himself. It is the only instance in history 
of such a government sanctioned and carried out by 
God himself. True, all rulers are morally respon- 
sible to him; but with Israel and Judah it was 
something more than this. Their judges and kings 
were not the heads of the state in the sense that 
monarchs are now: they were the delegates and 
vicegerents of God, responsible to him exactly in 
the same way as that in which the second authority 
in a state is responsible to the first or head—as a 
prime minister is to an absolute king. They were 
commanded to “inquire of the Lord” before taking 
any important step; and they received special 
Divine revelations (either through one of the proph- 
ets, or, in some manner we do not understand, 
through the high priest), telling them what to do 
and what to avoid. 

God dealt, then, with these delegates, not merely 
as he deals with other men, but in his capacity of 


Revealsd Religion, 9 


65 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


Supreme Ruler of the state. Now in all states and 
nations where there is any government at all, the 
crime of high treason is the offence punished with 
the utmost severity. Does this mean that high 
treason is really a more heinous sin than any other? 
Not so; but it is punished more severely than other 
things ‘ecole it strikes at the root of all governing 
power and all authority in the state. 

The instances of disobedience in the judges and 
kings, and other national representatives, were not 
only cases of rebellion against God as such—that 
would have been the case with any wilful sin—but 
of disobedience to the highest authority in the 
state—that is, of treason. They were political and 
not individual sins, and as such they were punished 
with the most direct and visible judgments. 

In the same way are to be explained the punish- 
ments of idolatry. The sin against God of breaking 
the first commandment is as great now as it was 
then; but it is not, as it was then, the crime of 
high treason. Therefore these cases in the Old 
Testament can never be fairly cited to defend the 
practice of using coercion in religious matters, be- 
cause the state of things when God himself conde- 
scended to be the supreme head of the Jewish gov- 
ernment is one which has nowhere else occurred. 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 67 


When the Lord Jesus commenced his public 
ministry, the Jews expected he would have revived 
this theocracy, and have placed himself at their 
head as their earthly monarch; but he distinctly 
declared that his kingdom in this dispensation was 
not of this world; and therefore the religious and 
political affairs of a nation can never justly and 
rightly be so united as they were under the judges 
and kings of Israel. 

Now, if we examine the crimes which were vis 
ited with the extremest severity in the history of 
those judges and kings, we shall find they all come 
in some way under the head either of sanction, 
direct or indirect, of idolatry, or of disobedience to 
some plain command of God. For in cases where 
the service of God in the tabernacle, or the messages 
he gave to his prophets to deliver, were concerned, 
the smallest dereliction of duty was punished, even 
in private individuals, with the severest judgments, 
because all this came under the head of high trea- 
son to their Divine Sovereign. Thus the priests 
were obliged to follow the regulations of the Levit- 
ical law to the minutest letter, on pain of death, if 
infringed, and Uzzah actually incurred that penalty 
for touching the sacred ark. These punishments, 
like the penalties inflicted for political crimes in all 


68 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


countries, were necessary for the sake of deterring 
others; and among a semi-barbarous and imper- 
fectly-enlightened people, prone to idolatry, as the 
Israelites of that time were, regulations not thus 
fenced in with prohibitions and penalties would 
soon have become virtually a dead letter. 

We will now proceed to consider separately the 
principal cases which have been felt as difficulties 
by many Bible students, and been used as weapons 
against the truth by unbelievers. 

I, The punishment of Saul for sparing Agag 
and the Amalekites, 1 Sam. 15. At first sight it 
appears as if Saul’s act in preserving the captive 
prince. was one of humanity, and that Samuel's 
treatment of the prisoner contrasts unfavorably 
with that of the king. But if we look a little more 
closely we shall see that, in the first place, Saul’s 
act was one of mzlitary insubordination as well as 
rebellion. A military chief, who should refuse to 
blow up a fort or storm a city, would be liable, even 
in our days, to forfeit his employment, if not his 
life. 

Saul’s disobedience, too, had not the excuse of 
being dictated by humanity, as the narrative plainly 
shows. Had it been so, he would have spared the 
women and children rather than the choicest of the 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 69 


spoil. This would lead us to infer that Agag was 
preserved, not from any generous or merciful im- 
pulse, but with the hope of obtaining a large ransom 
for his liberation ; failing which he would probably 
have either met with a cruel death, or been reduced 
to the degrading slavery of Adoni-bezek’s captive 
kings, of whom we read in Judges. When the 
Amalekite prince came “ delicately,” or, as it should 
be rendered,* “ /uxuriously attired,’ or “exultingly,” 
it was doubtless in the full expectation of being able 
to free himself by paying a large sum of money. 
And when he met, at the prophet’s hands, with the 
death he had inflicted on so many (for Samuel’s 
expression proves that he was known as a man ex- 
ceptionally cruel even for his own time), we can only 
look on the transaction, as in the case of the cities 
of Canaan, as the execution of stern justice by one 
who acted in this, like Joshua, Moses, and Elijah, 
as God’s executioner. 

But there was probably no country in existence 
where the same fate, or a worse, would not have 
awaited any captive king who was unable to pay a 
ransom sufficient for the cupidity of his captors. 
We cannot look into a page of ancient history with- 
out seeing what was the general tenor of public 


* See Genesius’ Lexicon, 


70 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


feeling many ages after the days of Samuel, and it 
is idle to apply the nineteenth century standard to 
such days. It was God's will to train his chosen 
people gradually to a higher standard than that of 
those around them, and Christ says expressly. that 
many things were permitted to the Jews of those 
days “for the hardness of their hearts,” which under 
the gospel would never be allowed. But the very 
persons who complain of the gospel standard being 
too lofty an ideal for our days, are ready to blame 
the half-civilized Israelites for not acting up to that 
standard, and this while they read with delight the 
classic poets in which deeds quite as bloody are re- 
corded with approbation! Truly our own genera- 
tion are not unlike the “children sitting in the mar- 
ket-place” (Matt. 11:16, 17) in our Lord’s days. 

II. The next case to consider is the slaughter of 
the Gibeonites. 2 Sam. 21:1-14. Why, it is asked, 
should this crime have been visited so much more 
heavily upon [Israel than many other transactions 
which seem to us even more indefensible? And 
why was David sanctioned in inflicting a punish- 
ment, as satisfaction for that crime, which shocks 
our notions of justice, as well as humanity, by sac- 
rificing seven innocent persons of Saul’s family to 
appease the offended Gibeonites ? 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. vy 


It is not possible to give more than a conjectu- 
ral explanation of a transaction of which we know 
so little. We have no direct account of Saul’s 
slaughter of the Gibeonites, and can only infer it 
from two passages of the history—1 Sam. 22:7, 8, 
and 2 Sam. 4:2, 3. In the first of these, Saul al- 
ludes to “ fields and vineyards” which he had given 
to his soldiers. Now, as he had not made any for- 
eign conquests of land, and as the Israelites were 
forbidden to sell any of their own landed property, 
it was only (it would seem) by taking the lands of 
the Gibeonites, who dwelt in the midst of Israel, 
that he could have made these grants, and as the 
Gibeonites dwelt in the midst of his own tribe of 
Benjamin, this would seem all the more probable. 
In the second of these passages we find the inhab- 
itants of the Gibeonite city of Beeroth flying from 
their city, and leaving their possessions to Saul’s 
captains. 

These of course are only inferences which may 
be drawn from examination of the passages in ques- 
tion, and it would be impossible, with the little light 
we possess, to speak with certainty on such a point. 
But one thing is clear: however and wherever the 
massacre took place, it was not only an act of cru- 
elty, but a deliberate breach of a solemn covenant. 


72 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


The Gibeonites had, it is true, saved themselves by 
an act of ‘deceit (Josh. 9: 1-15) ; but after this had 
been discovered, the Israelites did not feel them- 
selves at liberty to draw back from the oath they 
had taken to spare the lives of this people. They 
ratified the engagement they had made, and bound 
themselves by a solemn covenant to respect their 
rights. These rights were henceforth as sacred as 
those of any tribe of Israel. And we see in all 
parts of the Old Testament that covenant-break- 
ing was regarded as a sin of peculiar heinousness. 
God’s promises to his ancient people rested specially 
on a covenant foundation -(as in a wider sense they 
do now, to all who seek him through Christ, Heb. 
6:13-19; 13:20, etc.), and therefore the sacredness 
of a covenant was the mainspring of their religious 
faith, and even of their existence as a nation, in a 
manner peculiar to themselves—besides the moral 
ground on which such agreements should be held 
sacred everywhere and at all times. 

In this covenant-breaking the whole Israeclitish 
nation had in some sort shared by allowing it and 
by partaking of the spoil; and their new king was 
implicated in it by not having at once made resti- 
tution. The punishment of the broken covenant 
was therefore to fall on the whole nation. 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. "3 


The atonement chosen is shocking to our feel- 
ings and notions; but it was suited to times when 
the right of the avenger of blood to demand life for 
life was universally recognized. And it may be 
that this punishment of the substitution of the 
seven men for their whole house, terrible as it 
seems to us, was one of the lessons needed to 
teach the Jews the necessity of atonement, and to 
prepare them to receive the great truth that their 
promised Messiah was also to be a substitute, the 
one suffering for the many. 

III. The punishment inflicted on account of 
David’s numbering the people. 2 Sam. 24. This 
seems at first more difficult to explain than any of 
the other cases; for if it be regarded merely as an 
act of pride and self-exaltation, this would scarcely 
account for the manner in which it was evidently 
viewed by so unscrupulous a soldier as Joab, who 
was not likely to have been shocked by a mere out- 
burst of vanity on the part of his sovereign. 

It was clear that Joab looked on David's plan as 
the transgression of some distinct command: and 
we find one passage which leads us to infer that 
such a command had been given: “ David took not 
the number of them from twenty years old and un- 
der, because the Lord had said he would increase 


Revealed Religion, 8 


"4 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


Israel like to the stars of the heavens.” 1 Chron. 
27:23. This does not expressly state that a prohi- 
bition had been given on that ground, but we are 
certainly justified, putting the two records together, 
in concluding that the act had been prohibited in 
so many words, and that the sin was acknowledged 
by David and punished by God as a distinct act of 
disobedience. 

IV. The punishment of Uzziah (2 Chr. 26: 17- 
20) must come under the same head. It was essen- 
tial to the whole character of the Mosaic law that 
the functions of the sacrificing priests should be 
accurately defined and limited. It was only in this 
manner that the minds of men could be prepared 
to understand the great truth set forth in the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, that Christ, being the true High 
Priest, of whom all the others were but types, no 
human sacrificing priest could ever be admitted to 
a share of His functions, when once He had com- 
pleted his atoning work. And when we see how 
prone men have been, even in more enlightened 
times, to try and claim a share in these sacred 
functions, and “seek the priesthood” also (as Ko- 
rah and his companions had done, and as Uzziah in 
this instance did), we can hardly wonder that a stern 
and uncompromising law should have been needed 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. Wits 


/ 


in those early days to fence round a service of such 
high and solemn import. 

In our days there is a tendency in many to think 
lightly of the two sins most peculiarly noticed with 
reprobation in the Old Testament—idolatry and 
disobedience to God: and it is well for us, who are 
yet enjoying the blessing of the “acceptable year” 
of the Lord’s long-suffering—the day of grace—to 
read the records of his sterner judgments on the 
sins we are inclined to think of little consequence, 
and to see how they are regarded in the sight of 
Him who, while “plenteous in mercy,” is yet of 
“purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” 

V. The punishment of the “man of God” who 
had been sent to warn Jeroboam. 1 Kings 13. 

This may appear at first sight even more dispro- 
portionately severe than the cases already noticed. 
The man of God had delivered the message faith- 
fully, had firmly resisted the offers of rest and re- 
freshment, which a long journey on foot in a warm 
climate must have made very tempting, and was at 
last deceived by a very plausible artifice, coming 
through a brother prophet. It would appear as if he 
had been more sinned against than sinning, and as 
if the punishment would have been more justly de- 
served by the man who had deceived him. 


= 


76 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


To this our reply must be, that the principle be- 
fore laid down of the way in which God’s delegates 
were dealt with will best explain the difficulties of 
history. As an individual, the young prophet was 
doubtless far less guilty in God’s sight than his 
deceiver; but he suffered as a representative man, 
not in his own character, but as one to whom a 
public trust had been confided, and whose respon- 
sibility was therefore greater than another’s would 
have been. 

His commission was to reprove the king of Is- 
rael and his people for a great public crime against 
their Divine Ruler; that commission he was bound 
to fulfil to the letter, by action as well as word, and 
a failure in the execution of his trust, however’ in- 
curred, had to be punished like high treason, be- 
cause such failure would detract from the force of 
the message he had to deliver; just as, in cases of 
rebellion against any lawful government, it is often 
necessary to punish, for the sake of example, many 
who, having been entrapped and drawn into the 
course they had taken, may really be less morally 
guilty than others who have not come within the 
law’s penalties. 

In this case a great principle was at stake. Jero- 
boam, from motives of policy, had established the 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 77 


worship of the golder calves as a substitute for the 
Temple services, to prevent his people going up to 
Jerusalem to worship, which he (not unreasonably) 
thought might detach them from their loyalty to 
him and lead them to follow the king of Judah. To 
make, as he thought, his kingdom more secure, he 
deliberately set himself and his people to violate 
the Second Commandment by instituting an unau- 
thorized and therefore forbidden worship of God. A 
prophet was sent from Judah to give him a solemn 
rebuke and warning; but the force of that rebuke 
would have been impaired, if not nullified, had the 
messenger of God consented to accept hospitality 
(and in those days such acceptance had more sig- 
nificancy than in our own) from any of those who 
were even indirectly sharers in this great crime. 
The old prophet was probably quite aware, on his 
side, of the effect such an action would have in ma- 
king the denunciation just uttered appear unreal 
and unmeaning. He was, most likely, a zealous 
worshipper of the golden calves, or at all events a 
partisan of the king, who may even have employed 
him to carry out the fraud. His artfully-planned 
scheme would have produced the very effect he 
desired, in neutralizing the terrible warning which 
had just been given to Israel, had not the disobedi- 


“8 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


ence of the young man been so speedily followed 
by punishment, and that of a nature likely to strike 
terror throughout the land. It was needful that one 
who had been induced to allow even the story of an 
angel’s message to win him from simple and un- 
swerving obedience to the command given him 
should pay the penalty with his life. 

And doubtless this awful judgment had its effect 
in leading many of the Israelites to return to the 
worship authorized by God. We read of a consid- 
erable emigration from the kingdom of Israel into 
Judah, first in the reign of Rehoboam, probably 
about the time of the events alluded to (2 Chron. 
11:16), and afterwards in the reign of Asa (2 Chr. 
15:9). 

VI. The punishment inflicted by Elisha on the 
children who mocked him. 2 Kin. 2:23-25.* 

This seems, like the former case, an exhibition 
of excessive severity; for if the word, as is gen- 
erally believed, has really the force of “little chil- 
dren,” it scarcely seems that an act of infantine 
mockery was worthy of any serious attention. 

But some of the most trustworthy authorities 
in the study of the Scriptures have come to the 
conclusion that the word rendered “little children” 

* See Note H, Appendix. 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES. 79 


should be translated “young men” or “servants ;” 
and, indeed, it is so used in numerous other passa- 
poseounuth 21S 62> Samir18s.5 5016 Kings 3:7: 
Neh. 4:23. In.this case the difficulty at once van- 
ishes, as their disobedience would then be that of 
conscious agents. 

But if children be really intended, the sin pun- 
ished was not the mockery of the children, but the 
idolatry, and bitter opposition to the prophet, of 
their parents, who appear to have been worshippers 
of Baal, persecutors of Elijah and Elisha, and whose 
children acted as the imitators of their parents, and 
probably at their instigation. 

In this case it would be to punish these idola- 
ters that their little ones were taken; and, as in the 
case of the Canaanites, it may have been really in 
mercy that the children of such wicked parents 
were cut off before they could be conscious and 
responsible partakers of those parents’ crimes. 

These instances, though not all that could be 
brought forward, may be considered the principal 
_ among the cases of disproportionately awarded pun- 
ishments among the judges and kings of Israel: 
and the mode of meeting these objections which 
has been here suggested, may help the student to 
make clear to his own mind, not only these, but 


80 OLD TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


other instances which may occur to him. If once 
we clearly understand that the subjects of these 
penalties were representative men, suffering not only 
in their individual but in their public capacity, all 
will be plain. . 

It was as the great lawgiver and mediator be- 
tween Israel and God, that Moses incurred the 
heavy penalty of dying before the Promised Land 
had been entered. He had been goaded into irrita- 
tion by the obstinate unbelief and murmuring of 
the Israelites, and in his haste and impatience both 
“spake unadvisedly with his lips,” and smote the 
rock which he had been commanded to speak to 
without touching. The act of disobedience was 
committed in a moment of agitation, and he might 
well have pleaded excuses for it; but he was God's 
delegate, the representative man of that page of 
history, and the fault could not be allowed to pass 
unpunished. 

And it is remarkable how faithfully all the fail- 
ures and wrong-doings of that great muster-roll of 
God’s messengers and vicegerents have been re- 
corded, placing them all, even the most blameless 
and holy, in striking contrast with the spotless and 
perfectly righteous ONE in whom was no fault. 


OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


ies Corl ad Gee Te. 
THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES.* 


OpjEcTION 1. That miracles are contrary to all 
our experience of God’s dealings with man, and that 
as itis only on the testimony of those who professed 
to be eye-witnesses (the New Testament writers) 
-that we receive our accounts of them, our belief 
must rest on an insecure foundation, since it is 
more likely that the testimony of others should be 
false than that wonders should take place which are 
contrary to our experience of what happens in the 
world before our own eyes. 

Answer. The fallacy of this argument is, that 
it is based on the assumption that whatever may 
be true in a limited sense, must also be true taken 
universally. 

* The remarks which follow would equally apply to the Old 
Testament miracles, but they are placed here because the New 
Testament “signs and wonders” have been made the special bat- 
tle-ground of those who would fain separate the facts of the gospel 


from its moral teaching. 


Revealed Religion, nit 


82 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


Now this assumption is wholly without founda- 
tion. It is quite true that there is mach testimony 
which cannot be relied on; but it is quite another 
thing to say that ina case of this kind wo testimony 
can be relied on. On the contrary, we are com- 
pelled to rely on testimony for a great many things 
we believe, in ordinary life, every day. 

Then again the expression, “contrary to experi- 
ence,” is a very ambiguous and vague one. Con- 
trary to whose experience, or to what kind? If we 
refuse to believe anything contrary to the individual 
experience of any one of us—in that case, one who 
has never seen the sea must disbelieve all he hears 
and reads of it ; then again, the Eastern king would 
be quite right, on this assumption, in declaring his 
disbelief that water could become solid ; and a man 
born blind would be quite justified in refusing to 
believe that any one could find out the shape, or 
size, or smoothness, or roughness of an object with- 
out touching it. All these things are, respectively, 
quite as much out of the range of the experience of 
the persons in question, as miracles are out of the 
range of ours. 

But we are not therefore justified in refusing to 
believe them ; we must remember that the experi- 
ence of the best-informed of human beings must 


MIRACLES. 83 


be limited, and that we are quite unable rightly to 
judge of what things may or may not be impossible, 
under circumstances out of the range of that expe- 
rience.* 

The ground on which we believe the whole 
Bible history, and the authenticity of the originals 
from which the Old and New Testaments were 
translated into our modern languages, is exactly the 
same ground on which the untravelled believe in 
the existence of foreign countries, and on which 
nineteen-twentieths of mankind believe in the Co- 
pernican system (those facts about the earth, sun, 
and stars which only a very advanced mathemati- 
cian can test for himself)—-namely, the uncontra- 
dicted testimony of a number of independent wit- 
nesses. And we could not have a better foundation 
for our belief ; for those who are opposed to each 
other on a variety of points-—whether in respect of 
science, history, travels, or other subjects—will 
always be ready and eager to sift each other’s evi- 
dence; and test, in the severest manner, each other’s 
statements. Any facts which can stand such a 
sifting must be firmly fixed indeed. 

It ison such grounds as those that all our belief 
in any history must be founded, unless we have en- 

* See Note I, Appendix. 


~ 


84 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


joyed opportunities of research only granted toa 
very few. And yet no one is thought unduly cred- 
ulous in giving full credence to the main facts in 
the histories, ancient and modern, of the best-known 
countries. And what holds good as to these, really 
holds good in a far higher degree as to Scripture 
narrative ; for no history, ancient or modern (as we 
remarked before), has ever been subjected to seve- 
rer or more searching tests. The body of uncontra- 
dicted testimony, therefore (that is, of testimony 
which no one has been able, with the utmost efforts, 
to invalidate), is far greater in this case, than that 
which supports any of the histories and ancient 
records of other countries which no sane person 
ever thinks of doubting.* 

OBJECTION 2. That it is inconceivable that God, 
the Creator of the world and the Framer of the 
laws of nature, should interfere with the course he 
has himself laid down, and interrupt those laws for 
any purpose whatever. | 

Answer. This is again an attempt to judge of 
matters utterly beyond our view. We cannot, in our 
present finite state of being, undertake even to pro- 
nounce what is an interruption in the laws of nature. 
It is only by long and close observation that we are 


* See Note J, Appendix. 


~ MIRACLES. 8s 


qualified in any way to pronounce what those laws 
are, and the most profoundly taught and diligent 
and patient students of natural philosophy and nat- 
ural history will generally be the slowest to pro- 
nounce dogmatically on such points. We know 
that many phenomena which were once regarded 
as interruptions of the course of nature, such as 
earthquakes, eclipses, comets, etc., are now known 
to be only a part of that regular course, subject to 
the same laws as those other and more ordinary 
processes which we see every day. It is therefore 
not such an easy matter as some think to pronounce 
decidedly that any special case is an interruption to 
the laws of nature.* 

But, secondly, we are not justified in assuming 
that the accustomed order of things would never be 
altered by Him who created it. It would be very 
hasty to assume that the maker or director of some 
complicated and powerful machine would never 
alter its working for any conceivable purpose. We 
know, on the contrary, that when a new kind of 
operation is required, the mechanic generally brings 
in some new power, or some modification of the 
old one, to bear on his work. The steam power is 
used in one way to start the working of a machine, 

_ * See Note K, Appendix. 


86 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


and in another to carry iton. Therefore, judging 
by what we see around us, we might expect before- 
hand that God would be pleased to use different 
and new manifestations of his power when what we 
call a new dispensation was brought in, from those 
he employs in the ordinary course of his provi- 
dence. 

It is plain, for instance, that the creation of the 
world, whenever it took place, must have been what 
we should now call a miracle ; that is, that the man- 
ifestation of God’s power which called this present 
world and its productions first into being, must 
have been different from that by which the ordinary 
course of nature is now carried on. The first ani- 
mals and plants must have been produced in a dif- 
ferent manner from that in which their successors 
have been; so with all the other processes of na- 
ture. . 

But since the creation, God has from time to 
time been pleased to deal with man in different 
ways, and to reveal his will to him under what we 
call different dispensations ; we might, then, reason- 
ably expect these various dispensations to be ush- 
ered in by some “mighty works” which to our eyes 
appear variations in the ordinary course of nature, 
and which would arrest man’s attention and show 


MIRACLES. 87 


him that God was about to communicate with him 
in an extraordinary manner. 

Now this is precisely what we see in God’s 
Word to have been his dealings with men. Every 
time that some special revelation of his will has 
been introduced, it has always been accompanied 
by “signs and wonders.” ‘These signs were worked 
in the days of the early patriarchs, when God had 
some message for them ; then with the Israelites in 
the desert, when the Levitical law was brought in, 
and during the whole time of their sojourning in 
the wilderness till they were established in the 
Promised Land. From time to time they were 
manifested to the judges and kings of Israel, always 
to point out some particular warning or instruction 
to be given by their Divine Head, 

Then, again, when what we might call the pro- 
phetical dispensation was brought in, z. e, the spe- 
cial course of teaching and exhortation, which the 
long line of prophets, from Nathan in David's time 
down to Malachi, were to communicate to the peo- 
ple of Israel and Judah, these prophetical teach- 
ings were accompanied from time to time by mir- 
acles. ; 
And lastly, when the Gospel dispensation was 
introduced, miracles, which had been suspended for 


88 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


many years, reappeared; Christ opened his minis- 
try with them, and carried it on to its close, working 
miracles wherever he went; and when he left the 
work to be carried on by the apostles and other 
disciples, they also performed mighty works, and 
“confirmed the word with signs following.” 

Thus it appears that miracles have always been 
the special accompaniment of every fresh message 
from God to man; and so far from being interrup- 
tions to the course of his providence, they are as 
much in their natural place when he is about to 
deliver a message, as the movement of the needle 
in the electric telegraph is when a despatch has to 
be sent. 

And we may observe that men have not been 
left in doubt as to whether the “mighty works” 
done on such occasions were to be regarded or not 
as signs that God was speaking to them. Care was 
always taken to make it perfectly clear that the 
wonders which took place were the credentials and 
tokens of a message from God. It was not merely 
because something occurred unlike the common 
course of nature that they were to look on it asa 
miracle or sign sent from God; he always caused 
them to be distinctly told so, and they were there- 
fore without excuse if they refused to listen to the 


MIRACLES. 89 


warning voice. The miracle was the herald of a 
message from heaven.* 

OxjEcTION 3. That, after all, the belief in mira- 
cles is not an essential part of the Christian reli- 
gion, which rests mainly on the internal evidence 
afforded by the beauty and sublimity of its teach- 
ing and its fitness to the wants of mankind. Mira- 
cles, then, these objectors urge, even if they were a 
help to the belief of those who witnessed them, are 
more of a hindrance than a help to the faith of mod- 
ern Christians. 

Answer. This objection is founded on a mis- 
take as to the true nature of evidence. It may be 
more difficult for us to prove that miracles really 
were wrought, than it was for those who witnessed 
them; but when once they are proved, they are as 
good an evidence for us as for the eye-witnesses. 
And we cannot set apart the miraculous part of the 
_ New Testament history (as we already observed), 
and leave it in abeyance, because the truth of the 
whole revelation given in the Gospels is staked 
upon the truth of the miraculous manifestations, 
We cannot escape from the fact that Jesus and his 
apostles professed to work miracles, and appealed to 
them to prove the truth of their teaching. Now if 

* See Note L, Appendix. 


— 
Revealed Religion. Ee i? 


90 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


their professions were false—if the miracles were 
not really wrought—they must have been deliber- 
ate impostors or the very maddest of all fanatics, . 
and then what becomes of the power of their moral _ 
teaching? If we accept one part, as we have al- 
ready pointed out, we must accept the whole. 

And, in point of fact, it would be a greater strain 
on any one’s powers of belief to imagine that a reli- 
gion like the Christian, with everything against it, 
could have gained possession, as it has done, of the 
civilized world, without miraculous manifestations, 
than to believe in those very miracles. Its success, 
without superhuman power being employed, would 
have been, we may say, the greatest miracle of all, 
as it had no aid from without, and nothing in its 
teaching to make it acceptable, like the Mohamme- 
dan and heathen systems of religion, to the lower 
part of men’s nature.* 

* See Note M, Appendix. 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. gt 


SE CI TOMonT, 


ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 


OBJECTION I. That the gospels could not be 
what they profess to be—real connected histories 
of our Lord’s life and ministry—because we find 
that the earliest Christian writers were not in the 
habit of quoting, as we do, from the Gospel of St, 
Mark or St. Luke, etc., but usually referred to cer- 
tain words or acts of our Lord, as to something 
known by tradition to themselves and their readers, 
without alluding to any written record. Therefore, 
these objectors urge, the evidence for the truth of 
the gospel narratives must rest on mere traditional 
information. 

And this objection is made to cut two ways: 
the opponents of revealed religion bring it forward 
to show that we cannot rely on the truth of the 
histories ; and those who (like the members of the 
Church of Rome and others holding similar views) 
rely on tradition as of equal value with Scripture, 
bring the same argument forward to prove that the 
most important truths rest on no better foundations 


92 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


than the church “traditions,” or oral reports, to 
which they hold so firmly. 

ANSWER. The argument appears at first sight 
plausible, but it does not prove the point. Take 
an example to illustrate it. Suppose a memoir is 
drawn up of some great man, a philosopher, or a 
master in some art or science, recently deceased ; 
his pupils and friends, and ¢hezy pupils, would at 
first be more inclined to refer to their own recol- 
lections, or to the accounts of him they had them- 
selves heard from eye-witnesses, than to the written 
volume compiled from those very sources : standing 
near the fountain-head, they would not care to drink 
from the cistern. Yet how absurd it would be for 
men of a generation later to conclude that the me- 
moir was of no value, because the great man’s con- 
temporaries, or those instructed by them, preferred 
drawing from the source which supplied that me- 
moir! 

The very circumstance of the written history 
being drawn up, pointed out that the compilers did 
not think verbal tradition would be sufficiently reli- 
able, eventually, to depend upon. 

Now this is precisely what has taken place with 
the gospels. St. Luke tells us expressly that many 
had taken in hand (besides himself) “to set forth in 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. 93 


order a declaration of those things which are most 
surely believed among them,” and that these things 
had been delivered to them by those “who from the 
beginning were eye-witnesses.” In other words, the 
apostles and immediate disciples of our Lord either 
wrote or related by word of mouth what they had 
seen and heard to many others who undertook to 
“set forth,” or, as we should now say, to compile 
and arrange, these histories. The first three gos- 
pels were doubtless the result of these compilations. 
It was to guard, therefore, against the danger of ver- 
bal narratives gradually getting altered by passing 
from mouth to mouth that these gospels were “set 
forth” by those who were either themselves “ eye- 
witnesses,” like Matthew and John, or who received 
them directly from such, like Mark and Luke. That 
the early Christians should have been more inclined 
to quote the sayings of those “ eye-witnesses” than 
the written account is, as we have seen, quite natu- 
ral. But the fact, as we observed before, of the writ- 
ten accounts existing, shows that verbal tradition 
was not relied on, and it also shows how careful the 
earliest Christians were to secure a perfectly accu- 
rate history ; while the circumstance that the refer- 
ences they made from memory agree with the writ- 
ten histories, is an additional proof of their accuracy. 


* 


94 WEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


And the way in which the gospels are compiled 
offers further proof of their being records of a real 
history. It is the false stories, the forgeries, like 
the Book of Mormon, which come out full grown at 
once ; real histories are of slow and gradual growth. 
A jeweller may make a paste imitation diamond 
quickly ; the real gem is formed slowly and silently 
in the earth. 

OBJECTION 2. The authenticity of the Gospel of 
St. John. 

It is a favorite assertion of writers of the class 
we are alluding to, that St. John’s Gospel is not to 
be viewed as in any way connected with, or agree- 
ing with, the other three; that it is to be regarded 
as the product of the writer’s own mind, put forth 
to advocate his peculiar views ; and not, as it pro- 
fesses to be, a faithful transcript of the most impor- 
tant part of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. 
The character given of him, it is also alleged, in 
this fourth gospel, is different from that of the other 
three: in those you have works of mercy and beau- 
tiful moral teaching; in this, chiefly abstruse doc- 
trines and disputes with. the Pharisees and 
scribes. | 

ANSWER. The Gospel of St. John itself, careful- 
ly and candidly studied, supplies the best reply we 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. 95 


could make. To point out all the proofs of the 
unity of design- of the four gospels, and of their 
remarkable agreement together, would fill many 
volumes; but even could we give them here in de- 
tail, it is better for the student to draw them out for 
himself ; and the more he does this, the more en- 
tire will become his conviction that the testimony 
of each of the “four witnesses,” as the gospel wri- 
ters have been truly called, confirms and throws 
light on the other. We shall find that if certain 
actions or certain discourses are given more fully in 
one than in another, still they all harmonize in the 
main points with each other ; and if there are any 
apparent discrepancies, they are only such as we 
may plainly see could be reconciled, had we more 
detailed and minute information. 

We shall see how each gospel contains some- 
thing of the element of each of the others, though 
one part may predominate more in one, and another 
in another. If Matthew contains more of the beau- 
tiful lessons of charity and goodness in the Sermon 
on the Mount, it has also the stern denunciations of 
the scribes and Pharisees, agreeing with those in 
the fifth, seventh, and eighth chapters of St. John ; 
and if St. John has fuller accounts of that long con- 
troversy with the self-righteous Jewish rulers, his 


98 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


narrative has also an abundant share of the works 
of love—the tears by Lazarus’ grave, the last ten- 
der thought for his mother in the midst of his own 
dying agonies. And if what we may call the leading 
doctrines of Christianity are more clearly set forth 
in St. John than in any of the other three, we shall 
find, on further study, that those leading doctrines 
can also be found in the others: for example, the 
numerous statements in John 1, 3, 5, 8, etc., that 
Christ is the Revealer of God to man, are matched 
by the memorable declaration in Matthew I1: 27 
and Luke 10:22, that “no man knoweth who the 
Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son 
will reveal him.” 

Again, the atonement for sin, so plainly set forth 
throughout the whole Gospel of St. John, is no less 
plainly, though more concisely, stated in Matthew 
20:28 and Mark 10:45. And the same may be 
said of many other passages. 

Then again, as to the narrative, observe how 
wonderfully the details given in St. John fit and 
dovetail, as it were, into those of the three others. 
Observe how the first calling of Andrew, Simon, 
and Philip, related in John 1, throws light on the 
account of the second call of the two former with 
their friends by the Lake of Galilee. In Luke 5:1, 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. 97 


2, we see Jesus accosting Simon as one already 
known to him, and responded to in the same way. 
How is this explained? only by John’s account of 
the first introduction, “where John was baptizing.” 
John 1:28. 

Again, the declaration of the false witnesses 
that Jesus had said he would “destroy the temple 
and build it up in three days,” though they failed to 
make out a clear case, was still evidently founded, 
like most accusations, upon some misrepresentation 
of a real incident ; otherwise it could hardly have 
taken such hold on the minds of his enemies that 
they even reproached him with it on the cross. But 
when we read St. John’s account of our Lord’s dec- 
laration, made on the occasion of his first purifying 
of the Temple, at the beginning of his ministry, 
that if they destroyed the temple, he would rebuild 
it in three days, John 2:19, 20, referring to the 
“temple of his body,” we have the key to the wilful 
misrepresentation of this prophecy which was after- 
wards brought forward by his enemies. 

Many other instances will occur as we continue 
to study ; and the more we search, the more will 
our faith be confirmed by fresh manifestations of 
the beautiful completeness of the great whole formed 
by these four independent histories, and the more 


Revealed Religion. if 3 


98 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


we shall see that so perfect a structure was never 
the production of anything of man’s invention. 

OBJECTION 3. That the narratives of the evan- 
gelists are in many parts scanty and imperfect, and 
some of their details are so loose and unconnected 
that it is difficult entirely to harmonize them ; also 
that very scanty particulars are given of many things 
in which we should naturally take a lively interest ; 
as, for example, of all that concerns unfulfilled 
prophecy ; and still more, in everything connected 
with a future state, and the condition of: the blest. 
On the intermediate state we have only three or 
four passages, and those very brief and concise ; 
the descriptions of heaven are, chiefly, manifestly 
symbolical in their character ; and of angels, etc., 
we have but very slight and rare mention made. 

Answer. Whether this is like what we might 
expect of a revelation from God, is perhaps hardly 
needful to inquire; the answer we should give to 
objectors is, “ Are these things like what we should 
meet with in a revelation from MAN ?” 

Contrast the scanty notices complained of here 
with the full and minute details of the Hindoo and 
Mohammedan paradises. Contrast the slight and 
inartificial gospel narratives with the carefully- 
framed and neatly rounded-off and elaborately-fin- 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. 99 


ished histories of many impostors. Jn general, we 
shall find a false narrative much more accurately 
and carefully arranged than a true one. The de- 
ceiver is obliged to be doubly careful not to leave a 
loophole for criticism. Lawyers who have to exam- 
ine witnesses before a court of justice know well 
that the statements made by the really honest ones 
are often less clear and coherent, and apparently, at 
first sight, less consistent, than those of the dishon- 
est ones, who have made up their false story before- 
hand, and are on their guard against attacks, though 
on closer examination the flaw in these can be dis- 
covered. 

And yet, with all their care, the compilers of 
fictitious narratives (whether made only to amuse, 
like Defoe’s tale, or with deliberate intent to de- 
ceive, like the histories of several famous impostors) 
have never been able to imitate truth so success- 
fully as to avoid all discrepancies and all inaccura- 
cies. But the closer we look into the gospel narra- 
tives, the more we shall see that the apparent dis- 
crepancies are just such as would naturally creep into 
any accounts of a transaction related, independently © 
of each other, by several different persons, especially 
by those who were giving simple, unvarnished his- 
tories of what they had themselves seen and heard, 


100 WEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 


and who were more eager to dwell upon the main 
facts than to take pains in reconciling inconsisten- 
cies in the detail or in answering objections. 

And, as we already observed with regard to the 
four gospels, so we shall find as to the whole of the 
New Testament, the more we study the develop- 
ment of characters and incidents, the more we shall 
be struck with the real harmony between all the 
different parts, and the truthfulness and consistency 
in the history, which underlies all apparent difficul- 
ties on the surface, and appears clearer and bright- 
er at every fresh inspection. 

Take, for example, the remarkable way in which 
the history of St. Paul, as given in the Acts, corre- 
sponds with the details we gather from the epis- 
tles, each part throwing light on the other, as has 
been admirably pointed out by Paley in his “ Horze 
Pauline.” The same with the points of agreement 
between the history of St. Peter in the gospels and 
Acts, and the allusions in his two epistles; and 
many other cases might be cited. 

The most artificially-framed fictitious narrative 
could never bear so close an inspection. Fiction 
and truth, as has been well remarked, bear the same 
relation to each other that the most delicate works 
of art do to those of nature. The most exquisite 


GENUINENESS OF THE CANON. 101 


point-lace appears coarse and clumsy when viewed 
through a microscope ; but the framework of a leaf 
and the wing of a butterfly appear more delicate 
and perfect the more powerfully they are magnified 
and the more closely they are examined.* 

With regard to the deficiency of details about 
unseen things, we may well reply to objectors, that 
this rigid abstinence from everything which can 
gratify our curiosity or excite our feelings is pre- 
cisely what we should not expect from any human 
teacher. Perhaps a little reflection will show us 
that it is in character with what we already know 
of God’s teaching. The response of our Lord to 
Peter, when asking the fate of another, was, “ What 
is that to thee? follow thou me;’ and when he 
asked the number of the elect, the reply was, “Strive 
to enter in at the strait gate.” 


* See Archbishop Whately’s “ Lessons on Evidences.” 


OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY GENERALLY. 


SHG TO Nal 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 


OpjEcTION 1. That the religion of Christ, which . 
we see was clearly zztended to be universal, has 
made such slow and uncertain progress through the 
world since the early days of its triumph over hea- 
thenism. Only a very small portion of the inhab- 
ited world has come, even nominally, under the 
influence of Christianity. This portion includes, it 
is true, the most civilized, powerful, intellectual, and 
advanced portion of mankind; but this very cir- 
cumstance makes it stranger that their religion 
should have spread so slowly and so partially. 

_ Answer. That very slow and partial spread of 
the gospel in our days, with every earthly advantage 
on the side of Christianity, should prove to us that 
the early triumphs of the faith were ot won by 
human power. In the first days of gospel preach- 
ing, all the wealth, power, civilization, progress in 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 103 


arts, etc., which are now enlisted on the side at least 
of xominal Christianity, were agadust it. And yet a 
few despised Jewish teachers succeeded in triumph- 
ing over all these, and even greater obstacles, and 
this when martyrdom was likely to be the recom- 
pense of the convert. 

It is true that it is only within the last eighty or 
a hundred years, since Europe was first evangelized, 
that any steady and concentrated efforts have been 
made to spread the gospel among the heathen ; still, 
since a little before the opening of this century, 
these efforts have been considerable, and many ac- 
tive and zealous missionaries of all denominations 
have gone forth. But the utmost successes of all 
these taken together do not come within an appre- 
ciable distance of those which the gospel won with- 
in the first quarter of a century, when its preachers 
had everything against them, except that special 
and extraordinary power which was manifestly be- 
stowed on them from above to enable them to carry 
on a work of such difficulty. The power of the 
Holy Spirit to animate and strengthen the preach- 
ers of the gospel, to make their teaching efficacious, 
and to move the hearts of their hearers, is, thank 
God, never withdrawn from the Church of Christ. 
We see its workings wherever Christians are labor- 


104 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


ing for the gospel, and in proportion to their faith 
and reliance on the Lord ; but the miraculous gifts 
bestowed on the first preachers of the gospel are at 
present withheld. It is clear that when Christian- 
ity was first preached, such gifts were needed to 
gain the missionaries a hearing from those whose 
attention could hardly have been won by the purest 
and loftiest teaching till this stimulus had been 
applied. 

Why it has not been the will of the Almighty 
so to order it, that Christianity should at once and 
permanently have been spread through the world, 
independently of the often uncertain and fitful 
efforts of Christians, we cannot presume to say: all 
we caz confidently affirm is, that the power which 
wrought such wondrous victories for the gospel was 
clearly a superhuman one—from heaven, not of 
men. 

OBJECTION 2. That the lives and conduct of the 
great majority of Christians are such as to reflect 
no credit on their religion. Were it truly from God, 
these objectors allege, it would surely produce a 
more powerful effect on the lives of all who profess 
to be guided by its precepts. 

Probably of all the objections brought forward, 
‘In conversation or in writing, against Christianity, 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 105 


none have had more force than this; the more be- 
cause, alas, the arrow is pointed with truth, though 
the conclusion: drawn is false. And those Chris- 
tians especially who fvofess to be “religious,” and 
are careless or inconsistent in their daily life, will 
one day find, to their bitter shame, that they have 
done more to hinder the spread of their Redeemer’s - 
kingdom than all the persecuting edicts of heathen 
kings, and all the scoffs of professed infidels. They 
have brought on themselves the “ woe” denounced 
by the Founder of their religion on those through 
whom “offences come.” And we need, all of us, 
to take shame to ourselves for keeping this too lit- 
tle in mind. 

But, as an answer to objectors, their very objec- 
tion can be turned against themselves. 

Answer. If you see a garden overgrown with 
weeds, and a few valuable flowers nearly choked by 
the noxious and troublesome plants, you do not 
‘conclude that the flowers themselves are good for 
nothing, but that they are not the natural growth 
of the soil, which, if left to itself, would have pro- 
duced nothing but weeds. So, the inconsistent and 
faulty lives of Christians are a constant witness to 
the truth that Christianity was a plant of foreign 
growth; that it did not ovigézate with those over 


Neveals] Religion, LA 


1066 OB¥ECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


whose lives it has had such partial and doubtful 
sway, but came “ down from the Father of Lights, 
‘1 whom is’ no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning.’* 

OpjEcTION 3. That while many professing a 
very high degree of Christian faith are inconsistent 
in their lives and practice, we find much nobleness 
of sentiment, generosity, and philanthropy among 
those not only without settled or firm belief, but 
who have, some of them, altogether cast off all 
faith in a Divine revelation. Does not this show, 
the objectors ask, that it is not Christianity, as 
such, which produces an effect on the hearts and 
lives of men, but merely any earnest and noble 
moral teaching ? 

Answer. In so far as these fine qualities and 
noble sentiments spring, as they often do, from a 
naturally fine, honorable, and generous character— 
and there are such, often, where there is no evi- 
dence of divine grace working—it only goes to 
prove that He who created the human heart is the 
same as He who is the Founder of that Christian 
religion which appeals to all its best sentiments— 
in short, that the Author of Nature and the Author 
of Revelation are the same. 


* See Archbishop Whately’s “ Lessons on Christian Evidences.” 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 107 


But in so far as moral influences from wéthout 
have produced these good fruits (and we must allow 
them to be good as far as they go), we may reply to 
the objectors, that they ave fruits brought from the 
Promised Land, even though brought by the hands 
of those who, like the spies of old, give an evil re- 
port of the land. The zeffex, or indirect influence 
of Christianity, even where it is very imperfectly 
known, and even among those who refuse to ac- 
knowledge its power, is very much greater than 
many real Christians are willing to allow. 

If this be disputed, ask the objectors how they 
can account for the fact that in all the ancient 
world, before the preaching of the gospel, charita- 
ble and philanthropic efforts were utterly unknown? 
How is it that we have no record of the existence 
of anything like a hospital, an orphan asylum, a ref- 
uge for the aged poor, or of any attempt to ransom 
slaves on a large scale? It will not do to reply 
that superior civilization will account for this. Eu- 
rope, in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, was 
much less civilized in most points than Rome under 
the Empire; and yet, even in the worst part of the 
Dark Ages, there were some attempts at hospitals 
for the sick, and some ideas of protecting orphans 
and desolate fugitives ; and though it was very long 


108 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


before the system of “serfs of the soil” was abol- 
ished, still this was done entirely by the efforts of 
the Christian church, imperfect and corrupt as it 
had become. The work of ransoming slaves was 
looked upon as a good and commendable work, and 
many rich men left or gave sums to it, as they do 
now to public charities. This was never done in 
the days of Greece or Rome. A great man might 
set free a favorite slave, or ransom a captive for 
some special reason, but never from a motive of 
general philanthropy. 

Again, how were gladiator fights, the exposure ~ 
of weak or deformed children, and other horrible 
abuses of the heathen world, abolished, if not by 
the gradual working of the ve/fex influence of Chris- 
tianity? It is good to keep these things in mind, 
because while we mourn over the imperfect effect 
gospel teaching has had in the world, and justly 
lament that it should not have done more, we may 
be led to forget what it Zas done. 

It is true, sadly true, that if the gospel influence 
had fully prevailed, wars would have ceased ; but is 
it not some proof of the power it does exert, in spite — 
of all, that we see men and women going out to 
tend and care for sick and wounded soldiers, at 
great personal risk and inconvenience, and in many 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 10g 


cases not even of their own countrymen, but for- 
eigners—sometimes even soldiers of armies hostile 
to their own country? Allow that perhaps many who 
have done this were not actuated by real Christian 
principle—it may be so in some instances—still 
they would never have done it dw¢ for Christianity. 
Of this we may be certain, for we know that the 
best and most generous of heathens would never 
~ have dreamed of such conduct. We read of hea- 
then princes and generals who were lauded to the 
skies for acts of generosity which we should look 
on as simple matters of course—acts of humanity 
and justice to conquered enemies, the omission of 
which would be blamed in the most unscrupulous 
of modern generals. How often has an outcry been 
raised, in time of war, for some act of severity which 
in heathen times would not have been thought worth 
a moment’s consideration !* 

When we look back and see what the world was 
before Christianity was preached, and then turn to 
look at what still goes on in countries where it is 
~ unknown, we shall be forced to own that if it has 
wrought less powerfully than should have been the 
case among those who do profess to believe it, it 
has done very much for many who do zd. 

* See Note N, Appendix. 


110 OBY¥ECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


OxsjECTION 4. But, it will be urged by these ob- 
jectors, we are quite willing to allow for the power- 
ful influence of gospel teaching as regards practice. 
We accept the beautiful moral precepts of the New 
Testament, we receive the pure and holy life of its 
Founder; but why not be content with this, in- 
stead of insisting on those perplexing abstract doc- 
trines which only trouble men’s minds? Why not 
hold fast to the moral teaching of Christianity, and 
leave dogma alone? 

ANSWER. The reason why we cannot and will 
not separate the moral teaching of Christianity from 
what you call dogma, that is, Christian doctrine, is, 
we may reply, because the Founder of our religion 
did not and would not do so. He latd down his life 
because he would not. It was “because he made 
himself the Son of God” that the Jewish priesthood 
clamored for his death. Did he give his life for a 
truth that is divine and necessary for our salvation, 
or did he fling his life away by mistake ? 

We must look these things in the face, and de- 
liberately make our choice. The Christian religion 
- is not only based on doctrine, but that doctrine is 
so closely interwoven with facés, historical facts, 
that we must in all fairness, as we Observed before, 
accept or reject the whole. 


ahi te i aa aE tie te Ie i i oe a do tae ee cer & 
‘ 1 yi . cee = . i , 3 
> ‘ < 4 
ee / | v4 f 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. III 


Ours is an historical religion. The great cen- 
tral fact on which Christianity is based is the resur- 
rection of Christ from the dead; because on that 
resurrection is based the great central doctrine of 
the gospel, that he died to save us from our sins, 
and bore our punishment in our stead. Without 
the resurrection, this would have been a simple 
matter of assertion ; for his death would have been 
outwardly, in its leading features, the same as if it 
had been only a martyrdom, as the deaths of many 
of his disciples were. Of course the attendant cir- 
cumstances were such as to mark it as peculiar ; 
but they would not in themselves have sufficed 
without his rising from the grave. This was the 
outward sign to human eyes that his death was not 
a mere part of the common lot of humanity, but 
that he endured it voluntarily to save us, and was 
set free from its bonds as soon as its purpose was. 
accomplished. 

This is the reason why so much stress is laid 


on the resurrection. It was a visible and undoubted 


fact, and the apostles were chosen as eye-witnesses 
fo.it. They could bear witness, as having lived 
with him before his death, that he had, three days 
after his burial, visited them, not as an apparition 
or vision, but in bodily form, eating and drinking 


112 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


with them, and causing them to handle his risen 
body and the marks of his death. The question as 
to the azm and purpose of his death was in itself a 
matter of doctrine, and they might conceivably have 
been honestly mistaken as to a doctrine; but they 
could not, unless they were madmen, have imagined 
that their Lord had visited and eaten with them, 
unless he really had done so. Therefore his resur- 
rection rests on their testimony, and, supposing 
them to be in possession of their senses, we must 
either, as we said before, accept this fact or believe 
them impostors. 

But the fact of the resurrection, again, is the 
pledge and witness to the truth that Christ died to 
atone for our sins. To admit one and deny the 
other would be to recognize the king’s seal and 
refuse to admit the message sent under that seal. 
Therefore we are in honesty compelled to receive 

both, or to reject both. | 
| And if we reject the apostles as honest witness- 
es, what becomes of their moral teaching? How 
can we receive those as true and holy men who 
passed their lives in asserting a falsehood? Thus 
we are brought to such a pass that we must, in 
common fairness and consistency, if we take the 
precepts as our guide, consent to receive the de- 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 113 


spised “dogmas” also ; for they have been so joined 
by the writers of the New Testament that they can- 
not be severed without violence to truth and com- 
mon sense. 

To speak of “charity without dogma” (that is, 
without faith in the great leading doctrines of Chris- 
tianity), or rather, without faith in that living Sa- 
viour of whose work and power and salvation these 
dogmas teach us, is to ask for fruits without a tree 
on which to grow, for streams and fountains with- 
out clouds to supply them with moisture ; for effect, 
in short, without cause. Our Lord’s own words are 
that he who aédzdes in him is the one who “ bringeth 
forth much fruit.” 

And if the objectors remind us of what we have 
already acknowledged, that fruits have been pro- 
duced, to all appearance, by naturally noble quali- 
ties of heart and mind, and by the indirect influence 
of the Christian religion, we reply that we fully 
allow there may be water pumped into artificial 
tanks and channels, and fruits gathered and tied to 
artificial branches. But we maintain that the water 
was first taken from a reservoir supplied by the 
clouds, and the fruits from the tree on which they 
grew. 

The Christian virtues, or virtues like Christian 


Revealed Religion. I 5 


114 OBYECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


ones, which we see in those not directly influenced 
by gospel teaching, are like these artificially-sup- 
plied waters and fruits. They are not to be ignored 
or undervalued ; for, in the very imperfectly Chris- 
tianized state of the outwardly Christian world, we 
cannot afford to dispense even with derived fruit 
or reflected light. But we must never forget what 
their real origin is. They may do service, even in 
this imperfect form. But we must keep in* mind 
that they ave derived, and never try to persuade 
ourselves that the original source is useless, because 
we cannot always trace its effects, or because the 
link between effect and cause may not be always 
easy to discern. 

OBJECTION 5. “But,” it is replied by these objec- 
tors, “how inconsistent it seems with the character 
of a merciful Creator to let the salvation of men de- 
pend, not on their trying to serve him to the best 
of their power, but on their assent to dogmas which 
they may be unable to understand or to believe! 
According to Christians, unbelief as to doctrines is 
visited more severely than grievous sins in practice; 
while assent to the doctrines of Christianity is 
looked on as more important, in God’s sight, than 
a good and noble life. And all this is taught by 
the same persons who acknowledge and teach that 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 115 


God sent his Son to give an example of godly life, 
and that he desires his servants to be holy as he is 
holy.” 

Answer. It is important to discuss the bearings 
of this subject with great care and attention, be- 
cause many Christians weaken their own cause by 
the unwise manner in which they state it, and the 
hasty and careless assertions they make. They often 
speak as if assent to certain doctrines were like a 
password to be repeated before gaining an entrance 
to a camp or fortress, or like the “Shibboleth” on 
whose right pronunciation the life or death of the 
Ephraimites depended. 

But this is not a correct statement of the case. 
What God requires is, not the mere assent to a cer- 
tain formula, but a certain state of mind and heart 
with reference to the Saviour. And this is requir- 
ed, not arbitrarily, but because the state of the case 
necessarily implies it. In every case, even in worldly 
affairs, where the question is one of deliverance 
from suffering or danger, it is clear that (unless the 
case be one in which a person can be saved, as it 
were, by force in spite of himself) acceptance of the 
offered deliverance must be the condition of gaining 
the benefit of it. A sick man who will not believe 
that he needs cure, and will not accept the offered 


116 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


remedy-—a drowning man who will not seize the 
plank or rope held out—a prisoner who refuses an 
offer of escape—must bear the penalty and suffer 
the consequences of their unbelief. We have only 
to bring this obvious truth to bear on the matter 
before us. The Christian religion, as we have it in 
the New Testament, teaches in the plainest lan- 
euage that men are sinners, and that Christ came 
on earth to save them from their sins. We have 
parable after parable in the gospel given us to illus- 
trate this fact, and to show the freeness of the gos- 
pel offer—the spread feast, the king’s invitations, 
the shepherd seeking the lost sheep, the father wel- 
coming his restored son; Christ pointed out as the 
Door and the Way ; the same things acted in the 
miracles of mercy and healing, the sick, blind, lame, 
deaf restored by the touch of Christ. If all these 
parables and miracles mean anything, they mean 
that Christ,is the source of life and deliverance; 
but if men refuse to apply to that source, can they 
expect still to enjoy the benefits which they have 
rejected ? 

All this of course only points to those who have 
refused the salvation offered to them. Scripture 
says nothing about those who had wof the offer 
made, and we have nothing to do with that part of 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. 117 


the subject, or with anything but what concerns 
ourselves. 

It does not imply, either, that he who accepts 
the deliverance must necessarily comprehend fully 
-its nature. The drowning man may be saved by a 
deliverer of whom he knows but little, except that 
he zs his deliverer. A child finds safety in clinging 
to his father, though he may be too young even to 
know his name. A willingness to accept the prof- 
fered deliverance is the essential condition ; and 
this, as we have seen, must be the case, even in 
earthly matters. 

The more fully the saved and redeemed soul 
enters into the truths about his Redeemer’s person 
and work, the more of course, his inner life will 
flourish, because the source of that life is in Christ 
himself; but his safety lies in acceptance of the 
gospel offer. 

Now, the reason why we, as human beings, 
must dwell on assent to doctrine, is simply because 
we have no other means of testing—as far as man 
can test--whether a person has received Christ. 
Fully and certainly only God can tell; but the out- 
ward profession is the expression which seals the 
acceptance of salvation in the eye of man; and 
therefore it is said that “with the mouth confession . 


ito. (ODSECIVONS, 1OSC Miss 117s viele 


is made unto salvation,’ and “ Whosoever shall call 
on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 
10:10; Acts 2:21. It is not that confession may 
not be made where there has been no real reception 
of the gospel; but where it is zo¢ made—where, 
apparently, the doctrines of the gospel are woz as- 
sented to—we have reason to conclude that the 
salvation offered by Christ has been virtually re- 
fused, or, at least, has not been received. 

With regard to those who have of had the offer 
made them, as we already observed, we know abso- 
lutely nothing; but we have every reason to believe 
that he who really desires to serve God according 
to his light will have more light granted him. “If 
any man z2// [zwzshes to] do His will, he shall know 
of the doctrine.” John 7:17. It is not that good 
works can be accepted instead of faith ; the bright- 
est gold cannot pass if it is not stamped with the 
sovereign’s image; but we have instances on record, 
like that of Cornelius, of God’s mercifully revealing 
the needful light to those who humbly and honestly 
strive to serve him; and we can well trust him, that 
he will never allow those “to be ashamed who wait 
on him.” 

But this is quite different from affirming what 
these objectors complain of us for refusing to ad- 


DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE. Iig 


-mit—that one who z#// not come in at the door of 
the sheepfold will be allowed to climb up some other 
way. John 10:1. We have no encouragement to 
believe that any such presumptuous attempt to 
choose our own way of salvation will be admitted, 
in defiance of the plain declarations of Scripture. 


120 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


mi biC EOIN elite 


OBJECTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE DOCTRINE 
OF THE ATONEMENT. 


e 


OBJECTION I. That the Jewish sacrifices were 
only an imitation of those of the heathen ; that if 
we can conceive them permitted by God, it was only 
in condescension to the weakness of human nature, 
and to the proneness of the Jews to follow the ex- 
ample of the nations about them, which they would 
have doubtless done in any case, even if not permit- 
ted, and which was therefore, in this case, to a cer- 
tain extent sanctioned. This objection you will 
find brought forward sometimes even by intelligent 
Jews. 

Answer. It would be more reasonable to take 
it the other way, and say that the heathen sacrifices 
were, in all probability, derived from those of the 
Jews, or rather the original worshippers of God. 
For we see by the history of Cain and Abel that 
the first men born into the world were command- 
ed, or at least authorized, to offer sacrifice for sin. 
And as the heathen religions were fallings away or 
declensions from the true one, it seems most proba- 


THE ATONEMENT. 121 


ble that, in their aberration from the truth, they 
still carried with them some vague traditions which 
led them to keep up the sin-offerings which had 
been made to the true God by their forefathers be- 
fore idolatry existed. 

OBJECTION 2. That the statements relative to 
the Atonement in the Acts and epistles are to be 
received entirely in relation to the moral effect of 
Christ’s death on the hearts and feelings of those 
who believed it ; that his appointed work was to set 
an example of perfect self-devotion and obedience 
to God, and thereby to produce an impression so 
powerful on men’s minds as to draw them to God, 
who had given them so great an Example, Teacher, 
and Guide. These persons will still call Christ's 
death an atonement, because, they say, it took place 
in order to reconcile man to God, and make him az- 
one with his Creator (the original meaning of the 
word “atone”). And in support of their opinion 
they cite the numerous passages in which the ob- 
ject of Christ’s death is spoken of as being “to 
reconcile us to God,” “God reconciling the world 
to himself,” Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5 ; 19, 20, and other 
texts of a like import. 

Answer. Is this view to be accepted, and if not, 
how is it to be answered? It would not be fair or 


Revealed Religion. I 6 


122 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


right to reject it as altogether untrue. These state- 
ments do contain truth, but not the whole truth. It 
is quite true that it is God who is seeking to recon- 
cile man to Himself, not man who has to try and 
reconcile God. It is man who is unwilling to draw 
nigh to God, not God who is unwilling to draw man 
to him. It is quite true also that the sufferings and 
dying love of our Lord and Saviour are such as to 
melt the hard heart of the sinner, and awaken feel- 
ings of love to God and hatred to sin in his soul. 

But it is one thing to say that the apostles put 
forward these truths in the passages quoted and in 
others, and another to say that only these truths are 
taught by them. These teachers give us only half 
the truth ; and it is under the disguise and shelter 
of half-truths that all the greatest religious errors 
have been introduced. 

The truth they have left out is this: that the 
death of Christ is not, as they would express it, 
« subjective” alone—that is, not only to be viewed 
as a means of producing an effect on our minds— 
but also, and principally, odjectzve ; that it is a work 
done for other causes than the effect on our feel- 
ings; a work done to atone for sin, strictly and lit- 
erally, by Christ “bearing the sin of the world” 
(John 1: 29, margin) ; that he came into the world 


THE ATONEMENT. 123 


not only to touch our hearts, but to act as our Sub- 
stitute and stand as our Surety. 

Now to answer those who insist that the effect 
on our minds was the only object of Christ’s work, 
there is one consideration we may bring forward, 
even before appealing to the text of Scripture. 

We shall always find in common life, that if 
some action is performed for the sake of producing 
an impression on the minds of others, and for that 
purpose alone, z¢ w2ll fail as soon as that purpose ts 
found out. Take an example. A great man who 
has been undervalued or unjustly disliked by his 
fellow-citizens, wins their heart by some act of lib- 
erality and generosity, such as helping them in 
some time of public distress, or the like. This de- 
votion to their welfare would doubtless lead many 
who had been his enemies to become his friends. 
But suppose they should afterwards find out that he 
had merely done this generous action for the sake 
of working on their feelings of gratitude, would not 
all the grace of the act be lost? That which is 
done 7z order to move us, ceases to Move US as Soon 
as we discover the secret. Even an orator must 
carefully conceal any endeavor he makes to affect 
the feelings of his hearers; and he is always most 
powerful if he can make them think that his words 


124 OB¥ECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


are the spontaneous expression of his heart at the 
moment.* 

Now, if this holds good in earthly things, how 
much more in respect of matters which must be so 
far harder for men to enter into than anything con- 
cerning their “ brother whom they ave seen”? 

If, then, the view of these teachers be the true 
one, it must follow that the benefit of the redemp- 
tion to us all must depend on our being eft 27 ig- 
norance of tts ultimate object and end. And is this 
like what we are taught to expect from Him who is 
THE TRUTH? 

Again, if we turn from “a griort evidence,’ as it 
is called, to the testimony of the Scriptures, what 
do we find? In the gospels there is comparatively 
little mention of the subject, because the work was 
not yet compléte. Yet here we are told that the 
Lord Jesus Christ came to “give his life a ransom 
for many,” Mark 10:45, to “take away” (or bear) 
“the sin of the world.” John 1:29. But in the 
Acts, epistles, and Revelation, we have the blood 
put forward continually and prominently. In Acts 
20:28, and 1 Peter 1:18, as the means of “ pur- 


* See Mark Antony’s speech, in Shakespeare’s “ Julius Cesar,” 
in which he tries to impress on his hearers that he is no “scholar,” 
but a “plain, blunt man,” 


THE ATONEMENT. $26 


” 


chasing the church of God ;” in Romans 3:25, as a 
“means of propitiation ;? in Romans 5:9, of justi- 
fication ; in Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1: 14, of 
redemption and forgiveness of sin ; in Colossians 
1:20, of “making peace ;” in Hebrews 9 and 10, of 
purging the conscience and enabling us to “enter 
into the holy place;” in 1 John 1:7 and Revelation 
1:6, of washing us from our sins. These are but a 
few out of the many that might be cited. If these 
passages do not refer to a real purchase and ran- 
som by the death of a real Substitute, what do they 
mean ? 

OBJECTION 3. That the similes of “blood,” “ran- 
som,” etc. were addressed to Jewish and heathen 
converts in condescension to their early prejudices, 
and that the language of the altar and the sacrifices 
was merely adopted in order to please and concili- 
ate them. 

Answer. If this were the case, the apostles 
might justly be accused of being more desirous of 
pleasing their hearers than of conveying truth to 
their minds. If there was zo truth in the language 
they used, no real vicarious sacrifice for sin, it 
would have behooved them to be doubly careful in 
the use of these expressions, as converts from Juda- 
ism and heathenism would be more likely than oth- 


126 OBFECTIONS TO. CHRISTIANITY. 


ers to misunderstand them unless they carefully 
explained and guarded their statements. 

But it is not true that these similes were only 
addressed to those who had recently been Jews or 
heathen. The First Epistle of St. John, addressed 
manifestly to Christians of much longer standing, 
contains the same expressions and the same state- 
ments ; and so does the Apocalypse. No one will 
suppose that the members of the “seven churches” 
addressed by St. John had been all of them recent 
converts ; and yet he salutes them in the name of 
Him who “loved them and washed them from their 
sins in his own blood.” 

OxjecTION 4. All this is true, these objectors 
will reply ; but we have to remember that the wri- 
ters of these passages were Orientals, and, like all 
such, were in the habit of using strong hyperbolical 
expressions and figurative language. These pas- 
sages about the “purchase,” the “ransom,” and the 
“blood of Christ,” were only a figurative and poet- 
ical mode of saying that in some sort the death of 
Christ was needed to raise man to a higher state. 

ANSWER. But, on the other hand, even allowing 
that they used figurative language, it must have 
been figurative of something ; otherwise it would 


have been unmeaning. And they do not make 
ad 


THE ATONEMENT. 127 


these statements in the manner of those who are 
using tropes and figures; they affirm them as mat- 
ters of fact. Neither do they write exclusively to 
men accustomed to Eastern imagery. The stron- 
gest of these statements of the atonement and its 
power are addressed to the Romans, an eminently 
practical people, and to the northern Celtic race 
who inhabited Galatia. When these men read about 
propitiation by Christ’s blood, and of his being 
“made a curse for us,” they were likely to under- 
stand it literally. 

And the Hebrew converts were assured that 
Christ’s sacrifice was the fulfilment and antitype of 
the Jewish propitiatory sacrifices. “The law was a 
shadow of good things to come.” If these “good 
things” were only a certain effect produced on 
men’s minds, what did all these types and figures 
mean ? 

OxsEcTION 5. That it is, after all, impossible 
that the death or suffering of one person should 
really stand instead of the suffering of another ; the 
image of a debt to be paid, so often used in expla- 
nation, is not a fair illustration. For, in the case of 
a debt, the soney is what the creditors require, and 
whether it be paid by A or B is of no consequence 
to them. But, in the case of a punishment, no just 


128 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


earthly judge would require a certain amount ot 
pain to be undergone by way of expiating the crime, 
and be indifferent whether the pain was borne by 
the criminal or a substitute. And far less, then, 
should God, who delights not in pain or death in 
itself, be painted like one who desired punishment 
as the creditor desires his just payment! 

ANSWER. The case of a debtor is not brought 
forward, as these persons seem to think, because 
the punishment of a crime is demanded like the 
money due to a creditor. 

In ancient times there certainly was a feeling 
more approaching this. The ancients did not speak* 
of inflicting and suffering punishment, but of zaking 
vengeance and saying a penalty. A modern judge, 
in civilized countries, thinks not so much of the 
past as the future, z. ¢., of preventing future trans- 
gressions by deterring offenders. 

The reason why the case of a debtor is applica- 
ble to the atonement, is not because a punishment 
and a debt are the same thing, but because the case 
of the debtor is the clearest and simplest, and also 
most familiar instance of complete substitution that 
we can use at the present day. The friend who 
pays for the debtor stands for the time completely 

* See “Memoir of Archbishop Whately,” p. 89. 


THE ATONEMENT. 129 


in the debtor’s place: he represents him. But this 
is not the only case of substitution that may be 
cited. Take, as an instance, what has often been 
done in the case of a rebel troop of soldiers: in- 
stead of punishing the whole corps, every tenth man 
is taken, and out of every hundred soldiers, ten suf- 
fer death. In this case the authorities, to produce 
a wholesome terror, and at the same time to avoid 
a general massacre, determine to make these ten 
men the representatives or substitutes of the other 
ninety ; they stand in the place of their comrades, 
who are considered as having suffered the appoint- 
ed punishment, and are then declared free. The 
“same may be said in the case of hostages, repre- 
senting a conquered nation or defeated army or 
captured city, and in the exchange of prisoners. 

Again, take the case of one man serving in the 
army in the place of another. It is said that once a 
- man who was drawn for military service in America 
paid a substitute to serve for him, who was killed 
in battle. The first man was again drawn shortly 
afterwards; he claimed to be exempted on the 
ground of having virtually ded in the person of his 
substitute; and the plea was accepted. In the case 
-of our Lord’s death, he thus represented, or stood 
in the place of, the whole human race. 


Revealsd Religion. T 7 


130 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


But in naming analogous cases of substitution, 
in order to make our meaning comprehended, we 
should be careful to give only such as will apply, 


and to remember that no illustration drawn from 


human affairs can ever perfectly and filly set forth 
a relationship so absolutely unique as that between - 
a sinful creature and a just and merciful Creator. 

It is very common to cite the case of the an- 
cient king, who, when his own son had incurred the 
penalty which would have involved the loss of both 
eyes, volunteered to lose one of his own in the place 
of his son’s. But this was not strictly applicable ; 
for the king was ot, in point of fact, his son’s szé- 
stitute, otherwise he would have lost doth eyes. The 
king agreed to share the penalty, much as is done 
by the members of an insurance company against 
fire or losses by sea: they agree to bind themselves 
together to share the risk, and each to incur a small 
certain loss, to save one of the number from the 
danger of a greater. This, however, is not a case 
of substitution, but only of codperation. 

The cases we have named above, on the other 
hand, are those of real and complete sadbstztutzon, 
2. €. one person taking the place of another. And 
we shall see this principle running all through the 
Old Testament. The firstborn of men and animals 


THE ATONEMENT. 131 


were to be represented by a lamb to be slain in their 
place. The tribe of Levi was to represent all the 
firstborn of other tribes, and in their place to be 
dedicated to the altar service. The scapegoat was 
to represent the whole Jewish people as their sin- 
bearer ; not in point of punishment—for we are not 
told, as some take for granted, that the animal’s 
banishment to the wilderness implied death—but 
in the point of their sins being entirely put away 
and cast out of sight. All these images are intend- 
ed,as the Epistle to the Hebrews indicates, to show 
forth the one grand central fact of all Christianity : 
that Christ, the God-man, was Zo represent the hu- 
man race; first suffering and dying for our sins, 
then rising for our justification, as a proof that death 
was overcome, and the penalty, to its fullest extent, 
undergone, then, ascending into heaven to appear in 
the presence of God for us, to represent us there. 
But if the objectors reply by asking w/y this 
expiatory and substitutional death was necessary for 
the pardon of our sin, it is surely wisest to reply 
that this concerns “the secret things of the Lord 
our God.” We cannot know anything of ultimate 
causes. We are only to receive what we are ex- 
pressly told, that the sinner deserves death ; that 
without shedding of blood is no remission; that 


132 OBFECTIONS 10. CHRISTIANITY. 


the sacrifices of the Jews were appointed to keep up 
the sense of this truth in men’s minds and prepare 
them to receive the great truth-—that Christ is the 
one real and perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for 
the sin of the world. ? 

On these truths—the vital and central truths of 
Christianity—-we must take our stand; and the 
more diligently and fairly and candidly we study 
the Scriptures, the more plainly’ shall we see that 
no honest interpretation of them can fail to set 
forth these truths. 

It is remarkable that the more the idea of the 
Atonement as a purely subjective work—done for 
the sake of affecting the minds of men as specta- 
tors—prevails, the less hold the doctrine of salva- 
tion through Christ has on their minds in general. 
Doubtless many have preached this view without 
seeing what it led to, and may have individually and 
personally leaned fully on the work of Christ, in 
spite of the want of clearness in their teaching ; 
for often people are instinctively right when they 
are doctrinally wrong ; but the effects of erroneous 
doctrine must be looked for in the disciple rather 


than the teacher. As the Christian Church in gen- 
eral became corrupt, we shall see, on examination, 


that men got to view our Lord’s death practically 


eae ee 


et hl ie, dil, 


; * 
_— ee oe 


~ 


THE ATONEMENT. 133 


(while assenting in theory to the orthodox creeds) 
more and more as a mere erample and less and less 
as an expiation. It is this error that lies at the bot- 
tom of the prevalent idea in all the unreformed 
churches, that men must try to erpzaze their sins by 
voluntary sufferings—putting away sin, in fact, by 
the sacrifice of chemselves, and not seeing that Christ 
has done it for them. They hoped by penance and 
self-denial to obtain pardon and to propitiate God. 
And they thought that the more closely they could 


imitate the Saviour, not only in holy life—for z/az, 
of course, is an example we cannot follow too sedu- 


lously and earnestly—but in his personal sufferings 


for us, the more likely they would be to obtain favor 


with God. They did not see that his sufferings for 


sin were izstead of ours. The path he trod must 


be trod a/one,; and to try and get the benefit of it 
by imitating it, would be as foolish as for one who 
had been carried out of a burning house by a brave 
deliverer who received Injuries from the flames in 
so doing, to think he would insure his own future 


safety by purposely inflicting burns on himself, to 


imitate his preserver. 

From this false principle, also, spring the efforts 
made by preachers, painters, and sacred dramatists 
in the “miracle-plays,’ to work up the minds of 


134. OB¥ECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


spectators to strong and vehement emotzon at the 
sufferings of Christ, as if.a burst of feeling were 
what is required, instead of simple faith to lay hold 
on the benefit offered. Not that strong emotions 
may not at times, through God’s directing and con- 
trolling power, have been made the means of lead- 
ing men to grasp at the great reality in faith; but 
the emotion is then only ¢he means, not the end; 
and, in the majority of cases, it is probably felt 
without the end being attained. 

Doubtless, many of those who “smote their 
breasts,” Luke 23 :48, on witnessing Christ's death, 
afterwards lost the impression and remained in un- 
belief. It is very easy to weep at an affecting ser- 
mon on the Passion, and then go back to the old 
course of worldliness and ungodliness. And all the 
tears and passionate emotion in the world will never 
draw us a step nearer to saving faith, unless we see 
that the work of our Lord is not a mere example, or 
a spectacle to be admired, but a ransom to be ac- 
cepted, or refused, by all men. 

This can hardly be dwelt on with too much care. 


For the enemy of our souls is never weary of fra- 


ming devices to turn off our minds from the con- 
templation of the great central truth of the gospel— 
acceptance and pardon through the atoning death 


THE ATONEMENT. 135 


of the Son of God. He will allow us to accept 
almost any other doctrine of Scripture, if he can 
keep us from holding fast to the blood of Christ. 
He knows that only the “rope with the scarlet 
line” in it, is a safe one to hold on to, and he would 
eladly entice or deceive us into letting it go. It is 
our part to be ever on our guard, and “earnestly to 
contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.” 
These few heads of the principal points in the 
Scripture revelations which are disputed by popular 
writers and speakers, can, of course, be only slight- 
ly touched on here; but it is hoped they may be a 
help to some readers to carry on this study for them- 
selves. They will not find that, carried on in this 
spirit, such a study will weaken their faith, as some 
seem to fear; very much otherwise. As we can 
judge better of the strength of some fortress which 
has resisted the most determined attacks from pow- 
erful armies of besiegers—as we are more vividly 
impressed with the firmness and solidity of a rock 
against which the waves of the sea are dashing with 
impatient fury—so we shall be more and more con- 
vinced of the impregnable nature of the “strong 
tower” of our faith (Prov. 18: 10), as we see it suc- 
cessfully resisting the attacks of eighteen centuries.* 
* See Note O, Appendix. 


136 OBFECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 


As gold appears brighter and clearer when it has 
been tried in the fire, so it is with the gospel. 

It is vain for our adversaries to maintain, as 
they often do, that they are bringing forward new 
and untried resources against the faith they seek 
to overthrow ; the arguments brought against Chris- 
tianity to-day will prove, on examination, to be lit- 


tle, if at all, different from those of centuries back. ° 


The old missiles are brought forward in a new 
form; the arguments urged by the philosophers of 
the last century are reproduced with slight modifi- 
cations. We have no cause to fear, while we hold 
fast to “the Law and to the Testimony.” But we 
must never take a single step in our own strength. 
We must prepare ourselves for battle in the name 
of the Lord, and relying on his promised help; his 
armor must be our panoply; the “sword of the 
Spirit, the word of God,” must be kept bright by 
prayer and watchful study, and held along with the 
“ shield of faith.” And then we shall be enabled to 
say with truth, even before the face of our adversa- 
ries, “Their Rock is not as our Rock, themselves 
being the judges.” 


“ 
ee ee ee ree ee 


~ 


’ a in ‘. 
eo oe ee ee ee 


= 


—— PEN 


DP PAIN DES 


NOTE: A: 


THE BIBLE WRITTEN IN ORDINARY, NOT SCIENTIFIC, LAN- 
GUAGE. 


SOME persons have imagined that we are bound to take 
our notions of astronomy, and of all other physical sciences, 
from the Bible. And accordingly, when astronomers discov- 
ered and proved that the earth turns round on its axis, some 
cried out against this as profane, because Scripture speaks 
‘of the sun’s rising and setting. And this probably led some 
astronomers to reject the Bible, because they were taught 
that if they received it as a Divine revelation, they must dis- 
believe truths which they had demonstrated. 

So, also, some have thought themselves bound to believe, 
if they receive Scripture at all, that the earth, and all the 
plants and animals that ever existed on it, must have been 
created within six days of exactly the same length as our 
present days; and this, even before the sun, by which we 
measure our days, was created. Hence, the discoveries 
made by geologists, which seem to prove that the earth and 
various races of animals must have existed a very long time 
before man existed, have been represented as completely 
inconsistent with any belief in Scripture.... 

It is important to Jay down the przzczple on which either 
the Bible, or any other writing or speech, ought to be stud- 
ied and understood, namely, with a reference to the object 
proposed by the writer or speaker. 


Revealed Religion. I 8 


138 APPENDIX. 


For example: suppose you bid any one proceed in a 
straight line from one place to another, and to take care to 
arrive before the sun goes down. He will rightly and fully 
understand you in reference to the practical object which 
alone you had in view. Now, you perhaps know very well 
that there cannot really be a straight line on the surface of 
the earth, which is a sphere ; and that the sun does not really 
go down, only our portion of the earth is turned away from 
it. But whether the other person knows this or not, matters 
nothing at all with reference to your present object, which was 
not to teach him mathematics or astronomy, but to make him 
conform to your direction.... Now the object of the Scrip- 
ture Revelation was to teach men, not astronomy or geology, 
or any other physical science, but religion. Its design was 
to inform men, not in what manner the world was made, but 
who made it; and to lead them to worship Him, the Creator 
of the heavens and the earth, instead of His creatures. 
Archbishop Whately’s Introductory Lessons on the History 
of Religious Worship. 


NOTE B. 
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 


Genesis 1:1. “The earth was without form and void” 
(thohu va bohu). It is not said that heaven was in this con- 
dition—but the earth was. Although the earth had been cre- 
ated by God, and though the God is a God of infinite good- 
ness, wisdom, and power—yet still, through some agency or 
other, the earth was without form and void—or as “¢hohu 
bohu” signify, vastness and desolation. The word ¢hohu is 
applied to a ruined city by the prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment, Isa. 34: 11, and is rendered by Gesenius “ laid waste.” 
The two words are used in Jeremiah 4: 20-30; the only 


ae eT es Oe RT ee 


« i _ 
a eee a ee amt 


wus 
7 j a 
Pe era eT eae ee a a 


APPENDIX. 139 


other place where it is used is Isaiah 34:11; in both cases 
it means a ruin. Therefore we are led to conclude that this 
describes the condition of the earth reduced to a state of ruin 
by some convulsion or catastrophe which took place at some 


_ indefinite time a/¢ey the creation mentioned in the foregoing 


TOTS. . cis 

...It is distinctly asserted in Holy Scripture that God 
did not make the earth to be without form and void—God is 
not the author of confusion. 1 Cor. 14:33; 1 John 3:8. 
See John 1:1. Creation is of God—but chaos is not of God. 

We are not to imagine that the earth in its present state 
is a mere isolated thing, but rather one of many links ina 
long chain of successive productions. 

The history of all God’s dealings with mankind presents 
to us a series of trials and victories—a series of ruins and 


- reparations. 


... Suppose, then, that the earth was created many myri- 
ads of years ago——suppose it to have been tenanted by many 
successions of animal tribes, and to have been adorned with 
trees and shrubs, ...as the researches of geologists author- 
ize us to do. Here Revelation comes to our aid. We know 
that the devil sinneth from the beginning.... Suppose, then, 
the earth to have been marred and ruined by the envious and 
malignant agency of evil spirits who had been cast down from 
heaven, what could be more probable than that God, who ever 
brings goodness out of evil, should have used the ancient 
materials of the ruined earth in order to build it up again in 
a more beautiful form, and to people the earth with new crea-- 
tures—namely, men formed in his own image and likeness, 
who should succeed to the place in heaven whence the fallen 
angels had been cast down? Abridged from Wordsworth’s 
Commentary. 


140 APPENDIX. 


NOT EG: 
THE LONGEVITY OF THE ANTEDILUVIANS, 


We have no direct information as to the immediate cause 
of the great longevity of the earliest generations of men. 
But it seems likely that it may have been produced by the 
influence of the Tree of Life. That the produce of this tree 
(whether its fruit or its leaves) was endued by the Creator 
with some property of warding off death we are plainly taught, 
both by its name, and by the exclusion of Adam from the 
Garden of Eden, “lest he should eat of the Tree of Life, and 
live for ever.” Itis likely that it had the medicinal virtue, 
when applied from time to time, of preventing or curing the 
decays of old age; just as our ordinary food preserves men 
from dying of exhaustion by famine, and as several well- 
known medicines prevent or cure certain diseases. We 
know, indeed, that there does not exist now any medicine 


that has the virtue of keeping up or renewing youthful health | 


or vigor. But such a medicine would not be, in itself, at all 
more strange than many things which we are familiar with, 
but whose effects we cannot explain and could never have 
contemplated. 

If, then, the Tree of Life were such a medicine as we 
have supposed, a person who always continued the use of it 
from time to time, would continue exempt from decay and 
death. 

But supposing some persons who had been in the habit 
of using it (as our first parents probably had, since there was 
nothing to prevent them) should afterwards cease to use it, 
their constitutions would probably have been so far fortified, 
that though they would at length die, yet they would live 
much longer than man’s natural term. And they would even 


i 
~ 


APPENDIX. 141 


be likely to transmit to their descendants such a constitution 
as would confer on those also a great degree of longevity, 
which would only wear out gradually, in many successive 
generations. 

Now it is remarkable that this exactly agrees with what 
we do find recorded. If you look into those parts of the 
Bible history which relate to this subject, you will find man’s 
life in the earliest generation extending to eight or nine cen- 
turies and upwards. And you will find longevity gradually 
and slowly diminishing in each generation down to the times 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived rather less than Iwo 
hundred years; and again, down to the time of Moses, who 
began his mission apparently in the full vigor of life, at four- 
score, and lived to one hundred and twenty. Joshua, who 
succeeded him, lived one hundred and ten years; and from 
‘thenceforward human life appears to have been brought down 
to about its present limit. Archbishop Whately’s Introduc- 
tory Lessons on the History of Religious Worship. 


NOTE D. 
THE ANIMALS IN THE ARK. 


Genesis 7:11-16. “Every beast after his kind.” As to 
the number of creatures in the ark, perhaps there were not 
so many as is often represented. All the human families, 
however diverse, came originally from ove fazr, and through 
four pairs (Noah and his family): may it not be that the nu- 
merous species of animals might be traced up to much fewer 
genera than is sometimes imagined, and that it is not correct 
to infer from the multitude of species now existing that 
Moses intended to say that each species had a representative 
in the ark? 

May not a special effect in multiplication of species have 


142 APPENDIX. 


arisen from the denxediction of God pronounced after the 
Flood? 

As is well said by Kiel, “ Physiology is wholly unable to 
inform us concerning the number of pairs of animals from 
which the existing species of animals derive their origin; 
and it is ridiculous to speak of the two thousand kinds of 
mammalia and sixty-five hundred kinds of birds, which Noah 
must have brought into the ark and supplied with daily food.” 
Lishop Wordsworth’s Commentary. 


NOTEGE. 
UNIVERSALITY OF THE FLOOD. 


I cannot see any urgent necessity from the Scriptures to 
assert that the Flood did spread itself all over the surface of 
the earth. That all mankind (those in the ark excepted) were 
destroyed by it is most certain according to the Scriptures, 
where the occasion of the Flood is thus expressed: “ And 
God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, 
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
only evil continually. And the Lord said, I will destroy man, 
whom I have created, from the face of the earth.” It could 
not be, then, any particular deluge of so small a country as 


Palestine which is here expressed, as some have ridiculously 
imagined; for we find a universal corruption in the earth 
mentioned as the cause, a universal threatening upon all — 


men for this cause, and afterwards a universal destruction 
expressed as to the effect of this flood. 

“ And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, and every 
man. And every living substance was destroyed which was 
upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the 
creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven, and they were 
destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and 


ea ee ee ee ee 


A 


ee oe ee 


— er 


APPENDIX. 143 


they that were with him in the ark.” So, then, it is evident 
that the Flood was universal as to mankind; but thence fol- 
lows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as 
to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that 
the whole earth was peopled before the Flood, which I de- 
spair of ever seeing proved. And what reason can there be 
to extend the Flood beyond the occasion of it, which was the 
corruption of mankind? And it seems very strange that in 
so short an interval, in comparison, as that was from Adam 
to the Flood, according to the ordinary computation—viz., 
1,656 years, and not much above 2,000, according to the lar- 
gest—the world should then be fully peopled, when in so 
much longer a space of time, since the Floed to this day, the 
earth is capable of receiving far more inhabitants than it now 
hath. .S¢z//ingfleet’s Origines Sacre. (See also Poole’s Sy- 
nopsts.) 


NOTE F. 


CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 


There is reason to believe that the confusion which is 
recorded as having occurred at Babel (afterwards called Bab- 
ylon), and which caused the dispersion of mankind into vari- 
ous countries, was in reality a dispute among them as to their 
worship of some god or gods. This, at least, is certain, that 
the scheme mentioned in Genesis {1 was something displea- 
sing to God, and therefore could not have been merely the 
building of a tower. And it is plain, also, from the Bible 
history, that some ages after the Flood mankind had very 
generally fallen into gross idolatry, though we are not told 
expressly when and how it was introduced. 

As for our tower of Babel, it is said, indeed, in our ver- 
sion, that a number of persons joined together to build a 
tower whose top should reach to heaven (our translators 


144 APPENDIX. 


meant an exceeding high tower), in order that they might not 
be scattered over the whole earth, and that God sent on them 
a confusion of language, which caused them to cease build- 
ing the tower, and scattered them. 

But you are to observe the word “reach” is supplied by 
our translators, there being nothing answering to it in the 
original, which merely says, “ whose top to the heavens.” 

And the meaning doubtless is, that the top of the tower 
should be dedicated to the heavens—that is, that a temple 
should be built on it to Bel, Belus, Zeus, or Jupiter, under 
which title the Greeks worshipped the heavens. For we find 
the Greek historian Herodotus, who many ages after visited 
Babylon, expressly declaring that there was there, in his 
time, a very high tower, on the top of which was a temple to 
Belus, who, he says, was the same with Zeus of the Greeks. 

The ancient pagans, you should observe, were accus- 
tomed to erect altars to the heavens, or to the sun, in “high 
places” (Numb. 33: 52), on the loftiest mountains. And as 
the land of Shinar is a very fertile plain of vast extent, and 
quite level, it seems to have been designed to make a sort 
of artificial mountain on it—that is, a very high tower—and 
to build a temple on the top of this, to their god Belus, and 
so to establish a great empire consisting of people worship- 
ping at this temple. 

The confusion which God sent among them, and which 
caused the tower to be less lofty than originally designed, 
and dispersed many of the people into other lands, was most 
likely not a confusion of language, but a dissension about re- 
ligious worship. The word in the original signifies 7p. And 
it is more likely that it was meant to signify worship than 
language. A dissension as to that which was the very ob- 
ject of the building would much more effectually defeat the 
scheme than a confusion of languages. For, laborers en- 


~ J i > 
a as ae 


APPENDIX. 145 


gaged in any work, and speaking different languages, would 
in a few days learn, by the help of signs, to understand one 
another sufficiently to enable them to go on with their work. 
But if they disagreed as to the very object proposed, this 
would effectually break up the community. Archbishop 
Whately’s Introductory Lessons on the History of Religious 
Worship. 


NOTE Gi 
THE MIRACLE OF JOSHUA. 


What was it that Joshua desired when he commanded the 
sun and moon to stand still? It has been commonly assumed 
that he wanted a continuance of light. But to this there are 
several very serious objections. 1st. If so, why did he couple 
the moon with the sun? In daytime the light of the moon is 
inappreciable, and for Joshua’s purpose, therefore, quite use- 
less. Yet both in his command, and in the notice of its ful- 
filment, sun and moon are put upon an equal footing, as if 
the standing of both were essential to his purpose. On one 
supposition only is this explicable, namely, that what Joshua 
desired was, not light, but darkness, in which case both sun- 
light and moonlight would have been alike prejudicial. 2d. 
The other particulars of the battle accord better with this 
idea of darkness than with the prevalent one of light. It is 
said that during the battle there was a terrific hailstorm, so 
severe that more Canaanites were struck dead by the hail- 
stones than fell by the sword. Such a storm presupposes a 
heaven covered with the thickest and blackest of clouds, 
such as would effectually obscure the light both of sun and 
moon. Now this hailstorm Jreceded the command of Joshua, 
and would seem to have been the occasion of it, from the 
way in which the two are linked together. It was thus after 
Revealed Beligion. 19 


146 APPENDIX. 


a period of intense darkness, bringing rout and slaughter 
upon the enemy, that Joshua spake. And, under such cir-~ 
cumstances, which was he most likely to desire, light or pro- 
longed darkness? 3d. The duration assigned to the miracle 
fits in better with this idea than with the common one. It is 
said to have lasted “about a whole day.” Now the battle 
began either at dawn, or probably rather before, for it is said 
that Joshua came upon them suddenly, having gone up from 
Gilgal “all night.” First came the slaughter of the unex- 
pected attack, then the storm, then the command to the sun 
and moon, which issued in their standing still “about a whole 
day,” z.é. all the day except that short space before the 
storm =began. |... ... 4th. The expressions used concerning 
the sun and moon harmonize as well, and somé of them 
much better, with this view than with the common one. 
There are three words used in the original: first (the word 
translated), “stand still,” literally, “to be silent,” an expres- 
sion better suited to denote darkness than light..... Sec- 
ond, “stayed,” or “continued.”.... It is to be observed 
that this is the word used in Habakkuk 3:2, to describe the 
sun and moon being obscured during a tremendous thunder- 
storm..... Third (the word translated), “hasted not to go 
down” is, properly, “hasted not to go,” the word “go” being 
one with a very wide range of application, and which would 
as naturally mean “come” or “go on” as “go down.”.... 
On every ground, therefore, it would appear that the miracle 
was not, as usually supposed, a miracle of prolonged light, 
but of prolonged darkness. George Warington’s Can we 
Believe Miracles ? 


, 
ae ee eee 


J oie 


‘ 
Ce 


APPENDIX. 147 


JNOTE-H. 


ELISHA AND HIS MOCKERS. 


It was not the opprobrium thrown on the prophet Elisha 
and his being stoned that was the cause of the destruction 
of these children; but for another hidden cause they were 
destroyed. For these were sons of those iniquitous priests 
who ministered to the calf in Bethel, descendants of the 
prophets of Baal, whom Elijah slew in the days of Ahab. 
These were enemies both of Elijah and Elisha; also of all 
those who feared the Lord God of Israel, and of those espe- 
cially who were sons of the prophets of the Lord who were in 
Beth-el. These were iniquitous persons and haters of God, 
whose sons heard them when they said that Elijah the 
_ prophet had gone up to heaven; and they mocked at this 
continually as false and devoid of truth, and they sung of him 
derisively from the time they heard it until now, to wit, be- 
fore their wives and children..... Wherefore these chil- 
dren, sons of evil ones, and haters of God, when they saw 
Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, their enemy and the enemy of 
their fathers, mocked him, shouting as they heard from their 
fathers. They also stoned him with stoues, and said, “ Go 
up, thou baldhead, falsely indeed as thy master Elijah has 
gone up.” Wherefore Elisha cursed on account of their race 
these children, evil and sons of evil ones, in the name of the 
Lord the God whom and his prophet they derided. Where- 
fore also God quickly heard of it and smote them in anger, 
and sent upon them these bears and destroyed them.* a- 
cob of Edessa. E 


* The conjecture that the word translated ‘children’? should be ren- 
dered “servants,” or ‘young men,” affords, however, another and perhaps 
a more satisfactory solution. Note by the Author. 


148 APPENDIX. 


NOTE 
MIRACLES NOT INCREDIBLE. 


When any one hears of a scientific marvel, does he merely 


compare it with the experience he has at hand, estimate the ~ 


prima facie probabilities in favor of each, and on their bal- 
ance base his final opinion? Most surely not. This is at 
best the first stage of the process. He inquires further,.... 
under what circumstances is it said to have occurred? By 
what agency is it said to be brought about? And his object 
in making these inquiries is to ascertain whether that expe- 
rience of his, which is contrary to the phenomenon, has really 
any right to be heard in the matter at all. For if there be in 
this phenomenon any important circumstance, or any agency 
of the influence of which he knows nothing, then he simply 
has no experience whatever on the point to which to appeal. 
But his “contrary experience” being thus found to be irrele- 
vant, the whole of the previous balance of probabilities is at 
anRend. «5. Take an example or two by way of illustra. 
tion..... For instance, the case of the Eastern prince and 
his ignorance of frost. When told that water was sometimes 
hard and solid, he would naturally ask, How was it so? and 
when? He would be answered, When the weather was ex- 
tremely cold, so cold that people were obliged to wrap them- 
selves up and have large fires in their houses in order to keep 
even moderately warm. Now of the existence of such cold 
he might very likely doubt; but one thing would be plain— 
having no acquaintance with such weather, he did not in the 
least know what effect it would have upon water. Ina word, 
he had really no experience to appeal to. He might object 
to the cause alleged, he might doubt its efficacy, but his ob- 
jection to the phenomenon as contrary to past experience was 


Cet, nei 


fe 


™ —- 


A 
a et 


remy 


APPENDIX. 149 


no longer tenable. George Warington, On the Credibility of 
Miracles. , 


NOTE J. 
EVIDENCE FOR ANCIENT BOOKS. 


An unlearned Christian may have good grounds for being 
a believer, without possessing entire confidence in any man. 
He may have reason to believe that there are ancient Greek 
manuscripts of the New Testament, though he never saw 
one, nor could read them if he did. And he may be con- 
vinced that an English Bible gives the meaning of the origi- 
nal, though he may not trust completely any one’s word. In 
fact, he may have the same sort of evidence in this case 
which every one trusts to in many other cases—where none 
but a madman would have any doubt at all. 
For instance, there is no one tolerably educated who does 
~ not know that there is such a country as France, though he 
may never have been there himself. Who is there that 
doubts whether there are such cities as London and Paris 
and Rome, though he may never have visited them ¢ Most 
people are fully convinced that the world is round, though 
there are but few who have sailed round it. There are many 
persons living in the inland part of these islands who never 
saw the sea; and yet none of them, even the most ignorant 
clowns, have any doubt that there is such a thing as the sea. 
We believe all these and many other such things, because 
we have been.told them. 

- Now suppose any one should say, “ How do you know 
that travellers have not imposed upon you in-all these mat- 
ters, as it is well known travellers are apt to do? Is there 
any traveller you can so fully trust in as to be quite sure he 
would not deceive you?” What would you answer ? I sup- 


TsO APPENDIX. 


pose you would say, oxe traveller might deceive us; or even 
two or three might combine to propagate a false story, in 
some cases where hardly any one would have the opportu- 
nity to detect them: but in these matters there are hundreds 
and thousands who would be sure to contradict the accounts 
if they were not true; and travellers are often glad of an op- 
portunity of detecting each other’s mistakes. .... 

It is in the same manner that we believe, on the word of 
astronomers, that the earth turns round every twenty-four 
hours, though we are insensible of the motion; and that the 
sun is immensely larger than the earth we inhabit, though — 
there is not one person in ten thousand that has ever gone 
through the mathematical proof of this. And yet we have 
very good reason for believing it—not from any strong con- 
fidence in the honesty of any particular astronomer, but be- 
cause the same things are attested by many different astron- 
omers, who are so far from combining together in a false ac- 
count, that many of them rejoice in any opportunity of detect- 
ing each other’s mistakes. 

Now an unlearned man has just the same sort of reason 
for believing that there are ancient copies, in Hebrew and 
Greek, of the Christian sacred books, and of the works of 
other ancient authors, who mention some things connected 
with the origin of Christianity. There is no need for him to 
place full confidence in any particular man’s honesty; for if 
any book were forged by some learned man in these days, 
and put forth as a translation from an ancient book, there 
are many other learned men, of this and of various other _ 
countries, and of different religions, who would be sure to 
detect every forgery, especially on an important subject. 

And it is the same with translators. Many of these are 
at variance with each other as to the precise sense of some 
particular passage; and many of them are very much op- 


- 


{ 


APPENDIX. 151 


posed to each other as to the doctrines which they believe to 
be taught in Scripture. But all the different versions of the 
Bible agree as to the main outline of the history, and of the 
discourses recorded; and therefore an unlearned Christian 


may be as sure of the general sense of the original as if he 


understood the language of it, and could examine it for him- 
self; because he is sure that unbelievers, who are opposed 


to all Christians, or different sects of Christians who are op- 


posed to each other, would not fail to point out any errors in 
the translations made by their opponents. Scholars have an 
opportunity to examine and inquire into the meaning of the 
original works; and therefore the very bitterness with which 
they dispute against each other proves that where they all 
agree they must be right. 

All these ancient books, in short, and all the translations 
of them, are in the condition of witnesses placed in a wit- 


- ness-box in a court of justice, examined and cross-examined 


by friends and enemies, and brought face to face with each 
other, so as to make it certain that any falsehood or mistake 
will be brought to light. Archbishop Whately’s Easy Les- 
sons on the Evidences of Christianity. 


NOTE K. 
SUPERHUMAN NOT SUPERNATURAL. 


Superhuman would perhaps be a better word to apply to 
a miracle than supernatural; for if we believe that “nature” 
is merely another word to signify that state of things and 
course of events which God has appointed, nothing that oc- 
curs can be strictly called “supernatural.” Jesus himself 
describes his works, not as a violation of the laws of nature, 
_ but as “works which none other man did.” But what is in 
general meant by “supernatural” is something out of the 


152 APPENDIX. 


ordinary course of nature, something at variance with those 
laws of nature which we have been accustomed to. Arch- 
bishop Whately’s Easy Lessons on the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity. 


NOTE L. 
WONDERS AND SIGNS. 


You should observe, too, that it would not have satisfied 
men’s minds merely to see some extraordinary occurrence, 
unless it were also something plainly done by the apostles 
as a sign testifying that they were divine messengers...+. 
Anything wonderful, in short, is then (and then only) a mi- 
raculous sign, when some one performs or foretells it in a 
manner surpassing human power, so as to make it aftes¢ the 
truth of what he says. And this may fairly be required from 
any one professing to be a messenger from heaven..... 
When aman comes to this country as an ambassador from 
any other country, he is required first to produce his “cre- 
dentials,” as they are called, that is, papers which prove that 
he is no impostor, but is really commissioned as an ambas- 
sador. And it is equally right that men professing to bring 


a message immediately from God, should be required to | 


show their “credentials,” that is, such miraculous powers as 


God alone could have bestowed, as a sign or token to prove © 


the reality of their divine commission. Archbishop Whate- 
Lys Easy Lessons on the Evidences of Christianity. 


NOTE M. 


MIRACULOUS TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH. 


It is quite a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of 
proving any fact makes that fact, when it zs proved, a less 
convincing proof of something else. For example, those 


ee 


APPENDIX. 153 


who live in the neighborhood of the places where beds of 
sea-shells are found near the tops of hills, and have seen 
them there themselves, are convinced by this that at some 
time or other those beds must have been under the sea. 
Now a person who lives at a distance from such places has 
more difficulty than those on the spot in making out whether 
there are any such beds of shells. He has to inquire of 
travellers, or of those who have conversed with them, and to 
consult books, and perhaps examine pieces of the rock con- 
taining some of the shells; but when once he is fully satisfied 
that there are such beds of sea-shells, this is just as good a 
proof to him as to the others that the sea must have formerly 
covered them. | 

And so also in respect of the Christian miracles. The 
difficulty we may have in deciding whether they were really 
wrought does not make them (when we ave convinced that 
they were wrought) a less decisive proof that the Christian 
religion is from God. 

But as for the difficulty of believing in anything so strange 
and wonderful as those miracles, you should remember that 
every difficulty (as was observed before) should be weighed 
against that on the opposite side. Now the difficulty of be- 
lieving the miracles recorded in our sacred books is much 
less than the opposite difficulty of believing that the Chris- 
tian religion was established without miracles. That a Jew- 
ish peasant should have overthrown the religion of the civil- 
ized world without the aid of any miracles, is far more mi- 
raculous—at least more incredible—than any that our books 
relate; and it will appear still more incredible if you remem- 
ber that this wonderful change was brought about dy means 
of an appeal to miracles. 

fesus and his apostles did certainly Jrofess to display mi- 
raculous powers in proof of their being sent from God; and 

Revealed Religion. 20 


1s4 APPENDIX. 


this would have been the greatest hindrance to their propa- 
gating a new religion if they had really possessed no such 
powers, because this pretence would have laid them open to 
detection and ridicule. 

But there is a distinction between our religion and all 
others which is often overlooked. Almost all religions have 
some miraculous pretensions connected with them; that is, 
miracles are recorded to have been wrought in support of 
some pagan religion among people who a/yveady believed it. 

But you will not find that any religion except ours was 
ever 7xtroduced—and introduced among enemies—by mirac- 
ulous pretensions. Ours is the only faith that ever was 
FOUNDED on an appeal to the evidence of miracles. And we 
have every reason to believe that no such attempt ever did 
or could succeed if the miracles were not really performed. 
The difficulty, therefore, of believing that the Christian reli- 
gion was propagated by means of miracles is nothing in Com- 
parison to the difficulty of believing that it could have been 
propagated without any. 

Indeed, we have every reason to believe that many more 
miracles must have been performed than are particularly re- 
lated. Several particular cases, indeed, of our Lord’s mira- 
cles were described; but besides these, we are told in vari- 
ous places of great multitudes of sick people being brought 
to him, and that’“he healed them all.” Matt. 12:15; 19:2. 
So, also, besides particular miracles related as done by the 
apostles (Acts 2:333.32:73 9:333;.19:12; 145951200 5eeme 
are told, generally, of their not only performing many mira- 
cles, but also bestowing miraculous powers on great numbers 
of disciples (Acts 8:6; 19:6); and we find St. Paul, in one 
of his epistles, speaking of it as a thing familiarly known, 
that miracles were “the signs of an apostle.” 2 Cor. 1212. 
And in all these books we find miracles not boastfully dwelt 


APPENDIX. 155 


on, or described as something unusual, but alluded to as fa- 
miliarly known to the persons to whom the books were famil- 
iarly addressed, that is, to the Christians of those days. 

But besides the accounts given in the Christian Scrip- 
tures, we might be sure, from the very nature of the case, 
that the apostles could never even have gained a hearing, at 
least among the Gentiles, if they had not displayed some ex- 
traordinary and supernatural power. Fancy a few poor Jew- 
ish fishermen, tentmakers, and peasants, going into one of the 
great Roman or Grecian cities, whose inhabitants were proud 
of the splendid temples and beautiful images of their gods, 
which had been worshipped time*out of mind by their ances- 
tors; they were proud, too, of their schools of philosophy, 
where those reputed the wisest among them discoursed on 
the most curious and sublime subjects to the youths of the 
noblest families’; and then fancy these Jewish strangers tell- 
ing them to cast away their images as an abominable folly—to 
renounce the religion of their ancestors, to reject with scorn 
the instructions of their philosophers, and to receive instead, 
as a messenger from heaven, a Jew of humble station who 
had been put to the most shameful death. How do you think 
men would have been received who should have made such 
an attempt as this with merely such weak human means as 
preaching? You cannot doubt that all men would have 
scorned them and ridiculed or pitied them as madmen. As 
for the wisdom and purity and sublimity of the religion of 
the gospel, these might have gained them some attention— 
not indeed among the mass of the people, who were too 
gross to relish or perceive this purity and wisdom—but among 
a very few of the better sort, if once they could be brought 
to listen to the description of the religion. And this perhaps 
they might have done, if it had been taught by some Greek 
or Roman philosophers famous for knowledge and wisdom. 


156 APPENDIX. 


But the gospel was preached by men of a nation which the 
Greeks and Romans looked down upon as barbarian, and 
whose religion especially they scorned and detested for be- 
ing so different from their own. And not only did the apos- 
tles belong to this despised nation, but they were outcasts of 
that very nation, being rejected and abhorred by the chief 
part of their Jewish brethren. 

If, therefore, they had come among the Gentiles teaching 
the most sublime religious doctrine, and trusting merely to 
the excellence of what they taught, it is impossible they 
should have had a hearing. It is not enough to say that no 
one would have Jelzeved them, but no one would even have 
listened to them, if they had not first arrested men’s serious 
attention by working (as we are told they did) “remarkable 
[special] miracles.” Acts 19:11. Archbishop Whately’s 
Easy Lessons on the Evidences of Christianity. 


NOTE N. 
EXCEPTIONAL CASES OF HEATHEN GENTLENESS. 


In reference to this part of the subject, it is only fair to 
allude to the records come down to us of the Peruvian Incas 
as an apparent exception. They were certainly far superior 
in gentleness and generosity even to enemies than any na- 
tion of whom we have any account; and far beyond their so- 
called Christian conquerors. But theirs must be looked on 


as an exceptional case: a people of originally gentle and | 


genial nature, and whose worship, however received or de- 
rived, had retained, apparently, some traces of the. original 
pure belief from which all nations had more or less depart- 
ed, after the early times of the patriarchs, with the exception 
of God’s chosen people, the Hebrews. 


! 

- . P i" if 
as enn . ia 
— ee Pee 


APPENDIX. 157 


NOTE O. 
DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY. 


It is worth while to remember that all the difficulties of 
Christianity which have been brought forward as objections 
against it are so far evidences in its favor, that the religion 
was introduced and established in spite of them all. Most 
of the objections which are brought forward in these days 
had equal force—and some of them much greater force—at 
the time when the religion was first preached. And there 
“were many others besides which do not exist now, especially 
what is called “the reproach of the cross,” the scorn felt tow- 
ards a religion whose Founder suffered a kind of death reck- 
oned in those days the most disgraceful, and whose followers 
were almost all of them men of obscure station, and of low 
birth, poor, unlearned, and without worldly power. 

Yet, in spite of all this, the religion prevailed. And that 
it should have made its way as it did, against so many obsta- 
cles and difficulties and objections, is one of the strongest 
proofs that it must have had some supernatural means of 
overcoming them, and that therefore it must have come from 
God. Archbishop Whately’s Easy Lessons on the Evidences 
of Christianity. 


BS ee 


PTY a 


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Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 


